Our Philosophical and Spiritual Roots

Aware of the philosophical and spiritual heritage that freed us from tyranny and helped us promote the common good, government by the people for the people, representative democracy, the promotion and protection of human rights, the rule of law, habeas corpus, the elimination of discrimination…

Commenting on that one is intimidating for the layman I happen to be: the task is daunting. This paragraph addresses our philosophical and spiritual heritage, and is reminiscent of the debate as to whether the European Constitution should refer to the continent’s Judeo-Christian roots: remember that such reference was voted against in the European Parliament in 2003.

Averroes

I am of opinion that such heritage should be referred to, but in a broader and more inclusive manner. Regarding philosophy, we should not forget that without the Moslems in Andalusia, the texts of Plato and Aristotle may have been lost forever. Averroes was no other than Ibn Rushd. Regarding religion, Spain, Italy, Greece and other parts of the Union have been marked by Moslem influence and today, Islam is at least the second largest religion within the EU. Medieval religious art fed as much on what was discovered in the Holy Land during the Crusades than on the Greek-Roman heritage. Religious toleration has been denied or practiced in all three monotheists religions. We owe them progress that has led to the development of human rights, even if such human rights have been denied by the dominating religions. It is a lot safer to refer to spirituality, supporting the good things, than religion, with its troublesome institutional element or sometimes lack thereof, which has been rejected as active participant to good government in most European regimes. Also, we rely on political thought that has developed on either side of the English Channel.

Freedom is a philosophical construct enshrined in European philosophy. Equality feeds both in philosophy and spirituality, and fraternity/sorority or brotherhood/sisterhood are spiritual in essence when extended beyond family relation.

The ideas of common good and good governance go back a long way. In the Republic, Plato taught us the five forms of government, naming them aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, told us that the tyranny is the perversion of monarchy: both are forms of one-man rule, but they are different. The tyrant regards his own interest, but the king regards that of his subjects.

Aristocracy, described by Plato as the rule by philosopher or wise men, deteriorates into timocracy, it is due to the corruptness of ministers, who distribute the resources of the state without regard to merit, and keep all or most of the benefits for themselves, and confine public appointments to the same persons, who take wealth only into account. Power is kept by bad men, instead of the best. It becomes an oligarchy when controlled by the rich.

Aristotle recommends a constitution:

[C]ontrolled by a numerous middle class which stands between the rich and the poor. For those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation find it “easiest to obey the rule of reason” (Politics IV.11.1295b4–6). They are accordingly less apt than the rich or poor to act unjustly toward their fellow citizens. A constitution based on the middle class is the mean between the extremes of oligarchy (rule by the rich) and democracy (rule by the poor). “That the middle [constitution] is best is evident, for it is the freest from faction: where the middle class is numerous, there least occur factions and divisions among citizens” (IV.11.1296a7–9). The middle constitution is therefore both more stable and more just than oligarchy and democracy. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/)

Democracy for Aristotle is a deviant constitution, to which a polity is to be preferred, as described in the paragraph above. The Americans used the term Republic, and devised a Constitution based on the rule of law and checks and balances to avoid the president to become a tyrant and also to avoid minorities to be oppressed by a possibly deviant abusive majority.

	Correct	Deviant
One Ruler	Kingship	Tyranny
Few Rulers	Aristocracy	Oligarchy
Many Rulers	Polity	Democracy

All Europeans aspire to government by virtuous men and women, and the European Constitution must protect us from deviant or corrupt regimes.

In their great majority, Europeans are attached to the promotion of the common good, government by the people for the people, representative democracy, the promotion and protection of human rights, the rule of law, habeas corpus (that part of the English heritage that all want to have), the elimination of discrimination…

We want to promote these in our local regimes and want to have them in our federal state, if it is to exist. If the federal state exists and meets these standards, then why don’t we want to be ruled by such a federal state? Mention of these formidable conquests of mankind feeding from our philosophical and spiritual roots is essential in the European Constitution.

Such mention states what we want our European polity to be and. It also claims our refusal and rejection of tyranny, oligarchy, and may be also some excesses of democracy where some politicians surf on people’s frustration to lead them to ill-conceived choices, as seen with the EU referendums of 2005 and 2016.  If our European polity does not meet all standards listed in this paragraph, it is our civic duty to reform it, rather than pulling out of it. We should work at improving our existing Union just as we have worked throughout history at improving our state institutions.