15 10 montesquieu on the natural passions 11

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1.0 MONTESQUIEU ON THE NATURAL PASSIONS
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Throughout the history of political thought there has been a general consensus
that understanding human passions is important in helping us understand what it means to
be human. However, opinions regarding the relative goodness of the passions have
diverged sharply. Although in some cases their treatment of the goodness of the passions
is ambiguous (for instance, in Plato’s Symposium where Socrates speaks generally
positively of eros , which he claims is the only being he genuinely knows), classical
political philosophers—at least at first blush—seem to regard the passions as parts of the
human soul that must be overcome or tamed in order for a soul to be healthy and fully
human. For instance, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates succeeds in persuading Glaucon to
accept the thesis that a healthy human soul ought to be governed by reason, which is in
turn aided by spiritedness ( thymos ) in harnessing men’s base passions.
1
And in Socrates’
account, when vicious passions rule, the soul is ill ordered and there is a “sickness,
ugliness, and weakness” to the soul.
2
Aristotle, although his ultimate stance too is
ambiguous, generally follows Plato’s lead in looking down on the passions as parts of our
nature that must be subdued in order for a human soul to be healthy. For instance, in the
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that “the person lacking self-restraint, knowing that
what he does is base, acts on account of his passion, while the self-restrained person,
1
Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 441d-445e.
2 Plato, Republic, 444d.

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knowing his desires are base, does not follow them, on account of his reason”. 3 And in
the Christian tradition, inspired at least in part by the classics, Augustine, for one, reviles
men’s “wicked passions,”
4
which purportedly keep men from divinely sanctioned ways
of life.
By contrast, modern thinkers do not criticize the passions so harshly as did the
classics. Indeed, modern thinkers even see the passions as parts of our nature that ought
to be treated matter-of-factly without being unnaturally constrained or beaten down.
Hobbes, for instance, offers a long list of passions,
5
and bases his political theory on
unleashing and ordering the passions in a peaceful manner. 6 As I will show below,
Montesquieu, like other modern thinkers, looks favorably on the passions. And this is
pertinent to my broader purpose, which is to show that, as we will see, various
governments are judged by Montesquieu according to whether or not they fulfill certain
basic needs of human nature, as they relate to the passions. Yet before giving an account
of Montesquieu’s views on the passions, I will first turn to what, according to
Montesquieu, is the best way to begin to understand the passions, as well as indicate
some significant obstacles to that endeavor.