I was intrigued by “Jaffa is No Deity” written by Sarah Albers. So much that I was compelled to contribute my opinion to this discussion about Jaffa. In the said article, Albers reiterated the typical paleo-conservative criticism of Jaffa’s work: That it is “ahistorical.” Now, I do not mean to argue otherwise. I also personally agree that this universal claim of natural rights does not make a strong case when divorced from the cultural atmosphere of the founding era. But being aware of the superficiality of my understanding I try to shy away from such universal and absolute-sounding claims as these: “The universal is inextricably wedded to particularity. The ‘exceptional principles’ that make liberty possible cannot be made manifest without tradition, history, and place” (emphasis added). What is the basis of these confident claims? In addition, these claims imply that a work in political philosophy must necessarily be historical. Why should political philosophy be historical? I believe her claims are not defensible.
If there were one approach that can get us to the truth, and if that one approach were proven to be history, I would not attempt to qualify Albers’ claims. Unfortunately, the truth, if there is one, cannot be comprehended within a single mode of thinking. If someone asks me “what is a desk,” I can confidently list its purpose, physical make-up, typical shape, and function. But each one of these does not necessarily tell the whole story about a desk. The knowledge of a desk must be obtained in a piece-meal fashion based on multiple frameworks. To know the physical make-up, we need science. To talk about its purpose, we need philosophy. To measure and calculate the dimensions, we need mathematics. Whatever the truth about a desk is, we cannot rely on a single framework to reveal the complete truth.
This limited nature of human understanding then leads us to the conclusion that one discipline should not judge the value of another discipline without a good reason. Political philosophy can be ahistorical and be valuable at the same time. Albers accuses Jaffa of creating an ahistorical framework that “partially falsifies” the depth and value of the venerated Declaration. Yet at the same time, she acknowledges that Jaffa’s work sheds light on another important aspect of the same Declaration. One can argue that Jaffa “partially falsifies” the historical context on purpose so that he can emphasize the importance of its “undoubted” “assertion of abstract truths founded on natural law.” It may have been necessary for him to make that trade-off. The historical approach does not tell us the whole truth. Neither does political philosophy. Albers seems to support this view herself until the last paragraph when she surprisingly takes the side of history. For this reason, I believe her claim about the “inextricable” tie between the universal and the particular is premature and inconsistent with her own article.
Do not misunderstand me. As I wrote earlier, I question the universality of rights based on natural law myself. However, I do not want to condone an article that seems to subjugate the entire discipline of political philosophy under the judgment of history. As students of liberal arts, we should be willing to compare, critique, and synthesize these different frameworks. This way of studying requires a careful examination of each discipline from within. I believe that using history as a measuring standard for a work of political philosophy does not meet this requirement. I urge the readers to inquire after the purpose of Jaffa’s project and the advantages and disadvantages that derive from that mode of thinking. Dismissing a framework prematurely by branding it as “partially falsifying” or historically inaccurate, I believe that Albers commits the very error that she accuses Jaffa of committing: “the embrace of dogmatic universalism.”
– Sang Jun Lee
