Abstract

Edmund Burke's A Vindication of Natural Society is essentially an eighteenth-century version of the Unabomber treatise. In the name of modern rationalism--that rationalism which has its roots in the Enlightenment--it attacks all civil and religious institutions by showing that their foundations are illegitimate and destined to cause misery. It thus purports to vindicate natural society and leave its proponents no alternative but revolution. ;This would be a stunning proposition from a man generally regarded as the archetypal political conservative, but the Vindication of Natural Society is nothing of the kind. It is instead a parody of the writings of Lord Henry St. John Bolingbroke and, more generally, a critique of modern political rationalism. Moreover, by allying the Vindication's theoretical approach to those of writers like Thomas Hobbes, Burke implies that their approach to political thought, when taken to its logical conclusions, leads to the radical revolutionary doctrine represented by the arguments of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. ;In the Vindication, Burke applies the reasoning in Bolingbroke's theological writings to secular themes: the origins of civil society, human nature, nationalism, partisanship, natural rights, slavery, and revolution. He presents the argument that civil, or "artificial," society can on no account be justified, provides virtually no benefits and unspeakable misery, and perverts our true natures. Yet in a variety of ways, the work asks the reader to question the truth of its premises, its method of reasoning, and the soundness of its conclusions. ;Burke thereby asks, "what would become of the world if the practice of all moral duties, and the foundations of society, rested upon having their reasons made clear and demonstrative to every individual?" Indeed, can these ever be deduced and verified in the same way as geometric proofs and Newtonian physics? Must we reject all that cannot be? Is it not possible to reform oppressive institutions and policies without radically sweeping away all that appears on its face to be irrational or unjust? Burke suggests that by so clearing institutions of their undergrowth of irrationality, modernity might strip civil and religious society bare, leaving nothing in its place but revolutionary dogma