On the thread between me and Justin (Michael Tigar), over whether or not you could be a conservative and smart, I asked a complicated question about the division or fizzy boundary between rationalism and ethics. I tried to use a quote from the Brothers Karamazov. If you re-read the BK section on the Grand Inquisitor, you will see a kind of twisted inversion of Aristotle's ethics (the state as the greater good of the personal good), combined with a literal reading of Machivelli's Prince, to argue that a religious state (and by extension, any State) is the consummate evil. It is presented as a rational argument that is of course completely irrational, and it is used by Ivan Karamazov against his little brother, Alyosha to hurt him, to destroy his innocent faith in the church, in the goodness of the world, of humanity and of god.
So, when you consider:
``... the notion in The Republic (and followed by Aristotle in On Politics) that the forms of government will best serve humanity when they are derived from a proper conception of human nature is the single most important philosophical insight ever, period. The insight that political theory and structures depend on ontological and epistemological conclusions allows us to focus on where the real debate lies in public discourse -- the nature of humanity and what is good....'' (Eric Dorkin)
it might also be worth the argument to consider Dostoevsky, particularly in The Brothers Karamazov. (I might be remembering this wrong--its been years.) The brothers and the father embody what D considered broad themes of Russian character where the father was the crumbling (often drunk--Yelsin look-alike?) authoritarian, and rotted traditional values patriarch, Ivan the westernized self-hating intellectual with a mean streak, Dimitri the romantic bear, full of life, poetry, blustery, sometimes bully, but basically good some where down the list, and Alexy loving, sweet natured, socially concerned---mystical and foolish. And there's a demented or at least epiletic illegitimate in there some where too, but I forget where he fits (Ivan seems to keep him around like a pet dog).
I suggest BK rather than some sociological study, or current essay, since in this case, it is objectively other than real, that is entirely fiction and entirely historical---so we can have any opinion want about them. While I haven't read it in years, I remember it as one of my all time favorites. (Too bad Hawkes never convinced the old Bad list to read it as a group.)
On the other hand, looking at the brothers K it is easy to conclude they were products of their time, in the deepest sense. That is, their natures were created by Dostoyevsky from out of the stuff of his own psyche, the social milieu and political economy of the period. But if this is so as a fundamental human condition, then there is no such thing as a given human nature, and therefore no a priori form of state or governance or custom that is best suited to that nature. The reason is these institutional forms and their imposed material conditions (the ultimate authors) constitute and help to create in a fundamental way the very nature these same institutions presume to govern. This ultimately turns on the relativity (and dialectic) of values and if, there is any such thing as a transcendental scheme of value that can be derived no matter how many societies, periods and people you consider.
Then finally, the State in the abstract can be consolidated or condensed into a set of laws. Here again we meet a deep conflict between what is rational and what is ethical (moral, just, good, etc). For example, Bush v Gore. It might have been rational, it might have been written by men and women much smarter than me, but it was profoundly amoral, unjust, and evil---as if written by the Grand Inquisitor himself---that is a complete perversion of the concept of law and state.
So what kind of law or state is supposed to rule over the Karamazovs, or for that matter the Dorkins, the Coxs, the Browns, the Grimes', the Murrays, the Furuhashis', the Sokolowslis, the Schwartzs?
Chuck Grimes