Lecture notes
Political Ideologies - Conservatism Unit
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
- Book
- Political Ideologies
Full notes for this unit of the Edexcel A Level in Government and Politics
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CONSERVATISM1) Human Imperfection
2) Tradition
3) Organic Society
4) Hierarchy and Authority
5) Property
6) Authoritarian Conservatism
7) Paternalistic Conservatism
8) Libertarian Conservatism
9) New Right
Edmund Burke: ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’
- Regretted revolutionary challenge to the ancien regime
- Willingness to ‘change in order to conserve’
Human Imperfection
Conservatism is a ‘philosophy of human imperfection’ (O’ Sullivan 1976)
- Other ideologies assume humans are naturally ‘good’ or can be made ‘good’ of their social
circumstances are improved.
- Some ideologies are utopian and envisage the perfectibility of humankind in an ideal society
Hobbes: In our natural state we have total freedom but life would be solitary, nasty, brutish and
short
Humans are thought to be psychologically limited and dependent creatures
- People fear isolation and instability
- Seek security
- Unlike self reliant, enterprising ‘utility maximisers’ proposed by early Liberals
- This belief emphasises the importance of social order & to be suspicious of the attractions of
liberty
- Liberty gives choices and can generate change/ uncertainty
- Thomas Hobbes was prepared to sacrifice liberty for social order
- With a desire for security comes the need for authority
- A community’s need for security overrides any individuals freedom and rights
Conservatives believe criminal/immoral behaviour is rooted in the individual
- Humans are morally imperfect
- Pessimistic/ Hobbesian view of human nature
- Humans are innately selfish and greedy: Hobbes ‘power after power’ is the primary human urge
- EG. Doctrine of the ‘original sin’ (Old Testament)
- Therefore crime is not due to inequality but is a consequence of base human instincts
- People can only be persuaded to behave civilised if they are deterred from their violent impulses
- Only deterrent is strong government, tough CJS, long prison sentences and use of corporal or
capital punishment
- Rule of law is not to uphold liberty but to preserve order
Some described Conservatism: ‘Political secularisation of the doctrine of the original sin’
Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham: ‘Man is an imperfect creature with a streak of evil as well as good in
his inmost nature’
Human’s intellectual powers are thought to be limited (Epsitemological imperfection)
- World is too complex for human reason to grasp fully
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