In our era of great political and also intellectual polarization, there has been a small revival of interest in moderation as having both philosophical and political substance, beyond seeking a mushy middle ground or compromise to defuse conflict. Lauren Hall’s refreshing and impressive book explores aspects of the political theory of moderation found in the family as a vital institution that, in turn, is a pillar of a healthy liberal society. She mostly examines works of political philosophy and theory, but supporting themes arise from sociology, sociobiology, and public policy studies on the family, including its mutually influential relationship with social structures and patterns. The family is a locus of moderation in practice, and also a topic for political philosophy on moderation (from Aristotle to Montesquieu, Burke, and Tocqueville), while being severely criticized by Plato, Marx, and Ayn Rand. This is because, per Hall’s definition of moderation, family reconciles and balances seemingly competing principles of human life and human nature. The radical philosophers, demanding analytical simplicity or one principle above all, thus reject all traditional conceptions of family. Hall’s defense of “social individualism” captures this point: Humans are by nature both social creatures and individuals concerned with one’s security and freedom; family as a marriage of adults who nurture their children in perpetuity is a fulcrum that balances or reconciles the tensions between these natural tendencies. In liberal societies it is a product of individual choice, in a private sphere apart from the collective or state, while being a social entity that realizes its connections to and need for a healthy social-political order. Family educates us toward understanding, and practicing, the complexity of our being and preempts the extremes of either radical individualism or collectivism, to which our natures, and thus politics, can be twisted or warped.
The family is thus, in Hall’s account, both an important topic for political philosophy and a model for more balanced, less polarized modes of philosophizing and politics. Given that our universities and journals, our broader intellectual discourse, and our politics are increasingly marked by self-sorting into narrow-minded schools and sects which grow increasingly intemperate toward differing views, Hall’s study is both a model and a tonic. This is not to say that it is boring or mushy. Disciples of the radical moderns Marx and Rand, and of the liberalisms of Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls, will disagree with her account of these thinkers and their views of family and society. Readers will discover subtlety and riches in the moderate liberal philosophies of Montesquieu and Burke, once commonly known among theorists and now largely neglected (much more attention being focused on radical, single-minded theorizing). Finally, the concluding chapters apply insights from this broad assessment of thinkers to a polarizing topic of intellectual and political discourse: same-sex marriage and whether it could be a sound evolution of traditional family forms, worthy of private and public support.
Hall joins recent works on a philosophy of moderation as the virtue of avoiding single-mindedness, of accepting complexity regarding human nature, thinking, and politics. It is the virtue of avoiding extremes, and the cycle of polarizing that extremes beget. She does not note these, but I would include Harry Clor (On Moderation, 2008), Aurelian Craiutu (A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 2012), and Peter Berkowitz (Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation, 2013). Both in thinking and politics, given our complex natures, we should seek harmony rather than monotones, and blends or balances rather than “ideal theory” that elevates one principle or sect above others in thinking (and, I would add, in our journals and faculty hiring). She also connects this deeper philosophical tradition to recent scholarship in a Tocquevillean vein that emphasizes mediating institutions between the individual and the state, including Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000). One larger argument is that the radical quality of laissez faire and social Darwinist liberalism eschewed efforts by Montesquieu and Burke to temper the atomism of Hobbes and Locke. This extreme liberalism of the 19th and 20th centuries produced a theoretical single-mindedness and individualism (economic and political) that undermined the family, thereby weakening both individuals and a healthy liberal community, and leading to still greater extremes of thought and practice—from Marx and fascism on the collectivist pole to Rand on the individualist one. This persuasive argument sets up Hall’s recourse to Montesquieu, the philosopher of both intellectual and political moderation, who in turn influences Burke and his distinctive conceptions of these themes.
Montesquieu and Burke are not relativists or constructivists, but natural law philosophers attuned to the complexity of human nature and social-political reality. They emphasize family because it embodies the balance of individual and community, nature and custom, private and public, past and future, love of one’s own and communal justice. A flourishing family thus is indispensable for a moderate liberal politics. For Hall, it is no accident that our theorizing and politics became so polarized as the culture of monogamous marriage and family disintegrated in the past century. Family requires us to moderate our individual wills and desires for the good of a social whole, but also protects individual dignity and a private sphere. We have to tolerate others and diverse views, mesh reason and passion, and balance a range of human goods and concerns such as liberty, equality, stability, and reform. Montesquieu and Burke connect advocacy of a complex, balanced constitutional order to the complexity and pluralism in the nature-custom blend of family. This is the culture, law, and politics of the just and flourishing middle ground, a vibrant and complex harmony of principles, institutions, and individuals. Hall thus reveals Montesquieu as the ground of Burke’s ideal that the “little platoons” of society be in mutual dependence with the political order.
This rewarding book stumbles at the close in analyzing monogamy, abstractly—among two gay adults as well as in traditional marriage and family—as a new middle ground. Gay marriage is the moderate alternative to the demonstrable failures of other new forms: single-parent, polygamous, and childless (or single child) families. Buttressing gay monogamy with norms of “family” and “marriage” would redress our trend of family disintegration; assist children damaged by such instability; and, transcend our polarization on these issues. Her attempt at a politically and philosophically moderate stance on this polarized issue does not comport, however, with her emphasis on nature in Montesquieu and Burke, nor earlier recourse to sociobiological studies about the naturalness, health, and indispensability of a monogamous marriage and its biological children for family and society. Among later thinkers influenced by these two great moderates, she occasionally cites the libertarian Hayek as well as (in my view the more balanced) philosopher Tocqueville; her tendency to rely more upon Hayek may explain why, in closing, she favors an adaptation of family that features individual choice (companionate or affectionate versus conjugal marriage), a private sphere, and democratic egalitarianism. She doesn’t acknowledge that, on her own terms, this is a radical transformation beyond nature, beyond traditional religion in the liberal democracies, and beyond appreciation of benefits afforded children and couples from the diversity of roles in traditional marriage. Suddenly, as well, there are no social science or sociobiology studies cited in support. The spirit of moderation calls for further argument and evidence here, rather than denunciation either by those advocating traditional marriage, or only gay monogamy as an adaptation, or for a wider range of alterations. Hall’s important contribution to political philosophy and public discourse deserves such engagement rather than the extreme responses of either neglect or sectarian censure.
