Montesquieu: Political Philosophy

Introduction

While reading about a political philosopher, always keep in mind his personal life experiences & the socioeconomic and political conditions of the time he was living in. Both have a deep impact on his ideas

Montesquieu is no exception

Montesquieu: His Life

Montesquieu (1689–1755) was born in Brède (France) in an upper-middle-class family. Raised as a Catholic, he later changed his religion to Protestantism, travelled widely, and became deeply impressed with the English parliamentary democracy

Montesquieu: His Time

Montesquieu’s time was one of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy. In France, the long-reigning Louis XIV died in 1715 and was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV.

Thus, these four things—his high-class background, political turmoil in Europe, monarchy in France, and parliamentary democracy in England, where he stayed a lot—and his tours of various countries left deep imprints on his political thoughts

Core Ideas of Montesquieu’s Political Philosophy

1. Pioneering Political Anthropology
2. Theory of State and Society
3. Separation of Powers
4. Forms of Government
5. Liberty and Laws
6. Political Influence on Climate

1. Pioneering Political Anthropology

Montesquieu is credited as being among the first to extend comparative methods of classification to the political forms in human societies, the initiator of a scientific enterprise that later became known as political anthropology

His was the first consistent attempt to survey the varieties of human society, to classify and compare them, and, within society, to study the inter-functioning of institutions, which gave rise to his theories on government.

Montesquieu’s most influential work in this field was the division of French society into 3 classes: Monarchy, Aristocracy and Commons, as against the prevalent estate structure of France, i.e., Monarchy, Clergy, Aristocracy, and the people at large represented by the Estates-General

2. Theory of State and Society

Although Montesquieu is not as famous as a “State of Nature/Social Contract” theorist like the famous troika of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, he did write about these topics.

However, unlike Hobbes and Locke, Montesquieu believed that in the state of nature, individuals were so fearful that they avoided violence and war. The need for food, Montesquieu said, caused timid humans to associate with others and seek to live in a society.

“As soon as man enters into a state of society,” Montesquieu wrote, “he loses the sense of his weakness”.Montesquieu did not describe a social contract as such. But he said that the state of war among individuals and nations led to human laws and government.

That is why Montesquieu emphasised that the main purpose of government is to maintain law and order, political liberty, and the property of the individual. Montesquieu opposed the absolute monarchy of his home country and favoured the English system as the best model of government

3. Separation of Powers

Every political philosopher is usually known for one political idea that overshadows all his other works: for Plato, it was justice, for Aristotle, it was Eudaimonia; for Iqbal, it was Ijtihad. For Montesquieu, it was the separation of powers

Dividing political authority into legislative, executive, and judicial powers, Montesquieu asserted that, in the state that most effectively promotes liberty, these three powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies, acting independently.

According to Montesquieu, in every state, there are three kinds of power

1. Legislative authority, by virtue of which, a ruler enacts temporary or perpetual laws and amends or abrogates those that have already been enacted.
2. Executive authority for things that stem from the law of nations, and by which a ruler makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes public security, and provides against invasions.
3. Judicial authority stems from civil law, where he punishes criminals or determines disputes that arise between individuals. Montesquieu argues that each power or authority should only exercise its own functions; it was quite explicit here:

“All would be lost if the same man or the same body of principals, nobles, or the people, exercised these three powers: that of making laws, that of executing public resolutions, and that of judging crimes or disputes between individuals.”

Montesquieu concluded that the best form of government was one in which the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were separate and kept each other in check to prevent any branch from becoming too powerful. He believed that uniting these powers would lead to despotism.

4. Forms of Government

Abandoning the classical divisions of his predecessors into a monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, based on the location of political power, Montesquieu classified them based on how the government conducts its business or formulates policies.

According to Montesquieu, there are three main forms of government, each supported by a social principle,” namely

1. Monarchies (free governments headed by a hereditary figure, e.g. king, queen, emperor), which rely on the principle of HONOUR
2. Republics (free governments headed by popularly elected leaders), which rely on the principle of VIRTUE
3. Despotisms (enslaved governments headed by dictators), which rely on FEAR By free government, he means a government dependent on fragile constitutional arrangements.

To Montesquieu, England was a contemporary free government where liberty was sustained by a balance of powers; the English king exercised executive power balanced by a law-making Parliament, with both houses checking each other. All balanced by an independent court system

Montesquieu firmly believes that each form of government has a principle, a set of “human passions that set it in motion”, and each can be corrupted if its principle is undermined or destroyed. If in democracy, people start to prioritize private interests over the public, it will ruin democracy

Similarly, in an aristocracy, the principle of an aristocratic government is moderation, the virtue that leads those who govern in an aristocracy to restrain themselves both from oppressing the people and from trying to acquire excessive power over one another.

A monarchy is corrupted when the monarch either destroys the subordinate institutions that constrain his will, or decides to rule arbitrarily, without regard to the basic laws of his country or debases the honour with infamy and indignity

5. Liberty and Laws

Montesquieu is among the greatest philosophers of liberalism, According to Montesquieu, political liberty is “a tranquility of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety.”

However. he is quick to point out that liberty is not the freedom to do whatever we want: if we have the freedom to harm others, for instance, others will also have the freedom to harm us, and we will have no confidence in our safety.

Accordingly, he believes that liberty involves living under laws that protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as much as possible, & that enable us to feel the greatest possible confidence that if we obey those laws, the power of the state will not be directed against us

Then how do we reconcile these two extremes—liberty and obedience to laws? Montesquieu comes up with two point solutions: the separation of powers (his overriding concern throughout), and prudent laws.

A. Separation of Powers

Since “constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it... it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check on power.”

This is achieved through the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government. If different people or bodies exercise these powers, then each can check on the others if they try to abuse their powers.

But if one person or body holds several or all of these powers, then nothing prevents that person or body from acting tyrannically; and the people will have no confidence in their security. If different persons or bodies exercise these powers, then each can check the others

B. Prudent Laws

Liberty also requires that the laws concern only threats to public order and security since such laws will protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as many other things as possible. Accordingly, laws should have the following features:

1. Laws should not concern offences against God, since He does not require their protection.
2. They should not prohibit what they do not need to prohibit: “All punishment that is not derived from necessity is tyrannical.
3. The laws should be constructed to make it as easy as possible for citizens to protect themselves from punishment by not committing crimes.
4. They should not be vague, since if they were, we might never be sure whether or not some particular action was a crime.
5. Laws should not prohibit things we might do inadvertently, like bumping into a statue of an emperor 6. Laws should make it as easy as possible for an innocent person to prove his or her innocence. 7. They should be concerned with outward conduct, not, (for instance) our thoughts and dreams

6. Political Influence of Climate

I would not have discussed this point because it has been so conclusively refuted, but still, I am doing it for one reason: it was used as a justification for the colonisation by white people of those living in countries with arid climates.

One of Montesquieu’s most-celebrated doctrines in France and the UK (both of which started their colonisation when he was alive) is based on the experience of his travels, and some experiments he made, to assess the effect of climate, on the physical frame of people and their intellectual capability

According to Montesquieu, a cold climate constricts our bodies’ fibres and causes coarser juices to flow through them. Heat, by contrast, expands our fibres, and produces more rarefied juices. These physiological changes affect our characters.

Those who live in cold climates are vigorous and bold, phlegmatic, frank, and not given to suspicion or cunning. They are relatively insensitive to pleasure and pain. Those who live in warm climates have stronger but less durable sensations. They are more fearful, more amorous!

And how cleverly does slavery justify slavery?

“In unusually hot countries, excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable to reason.”