Aristotelian Ethico-Political Motives in Ivan Ilyin’s Liberal-Conservative Conception

Russian liberal conservatism is tightly connected, perhaps, more than any other tradition of domestic social philosophy, with the reception of Aristotle. The classically noted larger inclination of entire Russian philosophy to Plato here ends up in view of undoubted proximity, first of all, to the Aristotelian moderate realism, in which the general always exists in an indissoluble connection with the particular, that’s why there is no special sense to oppose material and ideal plans of being ontologically and with regard to individualism and collectivism – in the sphere of social ontology. Middleness and synthetical character of the political philosophy of Aristotle, rooting in his ethics, that demonstrates constant movement to the dialectical “golden mean” between the extremes of deficiency and surplus, directly agree with the deep intensions of all liberal conservatives, and Russian ones in particular. These intensions are linked with the problems of the reconciliation of the principle of personal freedom with the state-social order, the permanent innovating of social life and succession of social development, and finally the religious-metaphysical essence of a human without however his detachment from the purely immanent tasks of terrestrial prosperity. In this report I would like to dwell on elucidating of some essential Aristotelian roots of I. A. Ilyin’sliberal-conservative world view, which in many respects makes it possible to investigate the nature of the reception of Aristotelian heritage by liberal conservatism on the whole.

The acknowledgement of interdependence between a virtuous person aspiring to happiness and public good is the first Aristotle and Ilyin’s common feature. Aristotle thinks that only a citizen who does not separate his behavior from the prosperity of policy can become properly happy; similarly to him Ilyin ascertains that only personality with the well developed civil legal conscience can be the authentic creator of its own life. In fact, only evaluating, spiritually mature and reasonable-free personality can come to a conclusion that completeness of its self-realization directly depends on the benefit of public whole, because exclusively by means of this merger of “private” and “public” the harmony of the active internal autonomy of a person and its unconstrained external manifestation will be achieved. In the “Nicomachean Ethics” we read the radical connection of the highest good of human life with the state (practical-active) way of life; indeed a sensual way – still non-human, and contemplative one (the first eudaimonia) – already non-human, but more likely, superhuman, godlike. Moreover it is important to emphasize that this socio-state way of life is supported by the ethical virtues, at the heart of which – the agreement of the sensual (animal) part of the soul with the so-called being obeyed reason (reasonableness). Here also a right “middle” clearly appears: virtue is not a quality of one ideal reason alone, another part of the soul – sensual (passion, emotions) also participates in it, and this sensual part given the correct motion is capable of strengthening the power of virtuous behavior. The point is that, if reason is considered as an authoritarian conscience, which subordinates to itself the natural senses and emotions, then virtuous behavior is come down to attrition on the level of forced loyalty. It occurs otherwise when rehabilitated in “good” potentials senses voluntarily obey the reason. Then it is deprived of the nuance of the violence of normative command and occupies a position of authoritative moral leadership over senses.

In the context of above-mentioned Ilyin’s opinion on personal virtue is similar to Aristotelian approach. Presence of the consciousness of personal rights and responsibilities (legal conscience) is not actually enough – it always risks to degenerate into the exceptionally legal, loyal behavior, – the moral culture illuminated by the noumenal content of human existence is much more essential. Spiritually mature individual, in principle capable of “carrying the burden of external freedom” because of the developed moral culture, has in himself the possibility to coordinate the selfishness of senses with the ideal tasks of reason. However sensual side here as well as in Aristotelian argumentation is not rejected. In this characteristic, by the way, we reveal the powerful realistic attitude, the sobriety of the socio-philosophical thinking of liberal conservatives attempting to find “the golden mean” between the empirical and overempirical goals of personality. For instance Ilyin saving private property institution from the attacks of overwhelmed by the distributive and socialist ideas Russian intellectuals indicates its (private property) complete naturalness and need for a person as an individual form of life – both corporeal and spiritual- transcending. The life of person inevitably comes to the external actualization of its inner spiritual potential, and private property comes out as an organic stage of this actualization, without which the internal content of personality does not obtain objective expression. Therefore, exactly with the agreement between the rightly directed instinct of private property and the spiritually reasonable center of personality we are capable of opening the positive value of “economic culture”, in which “a person treats to the things not only by means of “material” interest, but also by will for perfection, by creation and by love”.1 Belonging to the methodology of antinomical mono-dualism of another Russian philosopher who gravitates towards liberal conservatism – S. L. Frank, Ilyin’s position asserts the synthetic social understanding of property deprived of the extremes of individualistic rapacious profit and barbarous socialist socialization. From an ethical point of view this coincides with Aristotle’s “paternal” obedience of senses and instincts to the reasonable part of a soul, being transformed in the political sphere into the best type of political system – monarchy, because precisely in it wise “paternal authority” is attained to a great extent. It must be noted that Ilyin analogously called monarchy, and later after the revolution such a desired by him “liberal dictatorship” (in the future for Russia without Bolsheviks’ regime), the most perfect type of the political organization of society.

One more point of contact between Aristotle’s ethico-political program and Ilyin’s liberal conservatism is the principle of proportionality in understanding of equity. By and large, “Nicomachean Ethics” clearly identifies concepts “justice” and “proportionality”. Proportionality is considered as a distribution of goods between the citizens in accordance with their “merit”, such distribution “so that both sides would obtain proportionally equal portions”.2 Again “the golden mean” in the just distribution must be observed, a specific “middle” between two extremes – “have less” and “have more”. In the Ilyin’s liberal-conservative philosophy proportionality takes the form of “the idea of rank”. Egalitarianism, according to Ilyin, is quite a disastrous for the society purpose, which mangles the qualitative selection of “best people” on the basis of their correlation with the unique, inherent to them qualities and the contribution to the crucial service to public whole. Social organization in which there is no real tendency toward the maximum convergence of the rank of spiritual quality and the rank of human acknowledgement is predominantly unstable. In fact a person endowed with power, authority, posts must be again worthy of this social acknowledgement and resulting from this responsibility for society and state owing to its spiritual superiority. If this is not so, that the imaginary rank of the located in quasi-elite people, inclined to envious acquisitiveness and purely personal benefits by all means, corrodes and finally destroys healthy social organism.

Ilyin’s liberal-conservative conception is assumed to be influenced by Hegel, especially in the light of Ilyin’s historico-philosophical works on Hegel. It goes without saying, the interpretation of the Hegelian Absolute as the concrete whole, immanent to human “world” and thus converting society and history into its accidents, is likely to indicate for Russian philosopher’s general aim at a certain coalescence of phenomenal and noumenal social being. However, it is essential to note that these very socio-philosophical constructions of antiquity, particularly the ethico-political views of Aristotle with his moderate realism and confidence in the indivisibility of personal and public good, lead to the Hegelian political philosophy. Consequently, Ilyin’s liberal-conservative social philosophy has deeper antique, Aristotelian sources as, however, entire Russian liberal conservatism which assimilated sober and synthetic features of Stagirite’s philosophical thought.

References:

1. Ilyin I. A. The Way of Spiritual Revival. Moscow: Institute of Russian Civilization, 2011. P. 265 [in Russian language]

2. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics // Aristotle: The 4-volume Collection of Works. Vol. 4. Moscow: Thought, 1983. P. 158 [in Russian language]