An Essay on the Modern State.

Lewis, V. Bradley

MORRIS, Christopher W. An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. x + 305 pp. Cloth, $54.95--This volume offers an extensive and illuminating inquiry into the philosophical justification of the modern state. The author's main thesis is that the state can be justified but that its justification is not sufficient to vindicate many of its most characteristic claims. The author thus steers a course between libertarian and communitarian rejections of the state and the pretenses of states themselves.

After an introductory chapter examining the historical origins of the modern state and its rivals and predecessors, Morris considers the arguments of both libertarian and communitarian critics of the state. While the communitarian ideal, Morris argues, poses threats to individual freedom unacceptable to most modern people and does not seem viable in an environment dominated by states that would likely prey on genuine small nonstate communities, the libertarian views, especially those grounded in rational choice theory, point to the establishment of states of some kind and not to anarchy.

Having concluded that the state can be defended from its critics, Morris examines just how states can be positively justified. Justification involves the giving of reasons to respect a state's laws and support its continued existence. One crucial consideration in the evaluation of such reasons is the justice of the state in question and Morris devotes one of his central chapters to this subject. Just states are those that respect the main constraint imposed by justice: respecting the rights of individuals. In defending this view Morris considers two metaethical accounts of rights. The first he calls natural rights, and the constraints it imposes lead him to the conclusion that no state could be justified on a natural rights basis. Natural rights theories require the state and its powers to be grounded in consent and Morris regards the requirements of consent so strictly as to deny justification to virtually any state and this leads him to an alternative that he calls "seminatural" rights (pp. 149-54), rights based not on consent but rather on mutual advantage as accounted for in contractarian theories To justice, Morris adds the condition of "minimal efficiency" (pp. 161-66) and concludes that states are "legitimate to the extent that they are just and minimally efficient" (p. 165).

Morris devotes his longest chapter to a detailed critique of the notion of sovereignty mostly concerned to refute what he takes to be the Hobbesian view that a coherent system of social order requires one final and supreme authority. Morris argues that a coherent system can be envisaged in which there is no one final locus of authority, but rather several interrelated sources. Moreover, Morris argues against any universal obligation to obey the law for rational individuals. Rather, whether or not the law should be obeyed is a calculation that varies from time to time and place to place and from person to person since such calculations are those based on the reasons acceptable to individuals as such. He concludes that states are not sovereign in the classic sense of the term and never have been and thus that the concept of sovereignty should be detached from the idea of the state.

The final two substantive chapters evaluate some additional claims about the legitimacy of states as well as the question of which functions can be justifiably undertaken by states. These two chapters are among the most illuminating in the book. Morris provides a balanced and sensible account of the conditions under which nationhood should lead to statehood, though, given the character of nationalism it seems questionable how persuasive it would be to the principles in many contemporary nationalist movements. In his discussion of state functions Morris argues against those who would confine the states to an absolute minimum. If the state can be justified rationally as providing collective goods, more than minimal state functions can also be justified, though considerations of justice and efficiency may well militate against many presumed functions.

Morris's account is a fine example of political philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition and exemplifies both the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. The writing is, for the most part, clear and crisp, the argumentation patient, careful, and orderly. Nevertheless, there are also real limitations to the account. While the author wisely engages Hobbes's thought most centrally, his reading of Hobbes is occasionally somewhat naive, especially in taking Hobbes's view of sovereignty in such a legalistic sense that it is seen to conflict with his account of rationality. It seems clear that Hobbes knew some of his arguments were faulty as rational justifications for specific acts of state power, but tips us off that he knows this and knows that individual rational calculations--on the part of both the sovereign and subjects--would play a large role in how the state's authority was actually exercised (one might consider here Hobbes's discussion of inalienable rights as well as his distinction between commonwealth by institution and commonwealth by acquisition in chapters 14 and 17 of Leviathan). Moreover, perspectives outside the analytic/rational choice view seem to merit scant attention: Hegel gets a nod; Marx is mentioned once; Machiavelli, Spinoza, and Nietzsche are left out entirely. After Hobbes, the thinker most frequently cited is Joseph Raz--indeed, one way to read this book is as a Razian critique of Hobbes. The individualist perspective also seems to exclude certain themes a consideration of which would serve to illuminate the problem further, for example the common good. Related to this, one could also suggest the possibility of a stronger connection between practical reason and morality than the author does. Nevertheless, this is a valuable book, and I especially recommend its careful criticisms of claims about sovereignty, nationalism, political obligation, and the legitimate functions of government in the seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters. By scrutinizing the claims it makes on us both explicitly and implicitly, Morris reveals a great deal about just what the modern state can and cannot be and this puts all students of political philosophy in his debt.--V. Bradley Lewis, The Catholic University of America.

(*) Books received are acknowledged in this section by a brief resume, report, or criticism. Such acknowledgement does not preclude a more detailed examination in a subsequent Critical Study. From time to time, technical books dealing with such fields as mathematics, physics, anthropology, and the social sciences will be reviewed in this section, if it is thought that they night be of special interest to philosophers.