I’ll soon be discussion leader of a Liberty Fund symposium on Liberty and Power. One of the readings is the correspondence between the famous Lord Acton and the less-famous Bishop Mandell Creighton. It’s the first time I’ve read Creighton’s side of things and I’m impressed by his willingness to admit error.
Acton takes on historian Creighton’s view of “great men.” In Acton’s letter of April 5, 1887 is the paragraph that contains a few famous sentences. I liked the whole paragraph. Here it is:
But if we might discuss this point until we found that we nearly agreed, and if we do argue thoroughly about the impropriety of Carlylese denunciations, and Pharisaism in history, I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.
I had never known before that this paragraph was in a letter, as opposed to an article.
Creighton’s response went beyond civil. He actually admitted error.
I particularly liked three passages.
The first is Creighton’s opening paragraph:
Your letter is an act of true friendliness, and I am very grateful to you for it, more grateful than I can say. It is a rare encouragement to have such a standard set up as you have put before me. Judged by it I have nothing to say except to submit: efficaci do manus scientiae. Before such an ideal I can only confess that I am shallow and frivolous, limited alike in my views and in my knowledge. You conceive of History as an Architectonic, for the writing of which a man needs the severest and largest training. And it is impossible not to agree with you: so it ought to be.
Wow! The latin phrase above translates to “I give an effective hand of knowledge.” I don’t quite get it.
The second was Creighton’s discussion of Pope Sixtus IV and the Spanish Inquisition:
My purpose was not to justify him, but to put him in rank with the rest. I think, however, that I was wrong, and that you are right: his responsibility was graver than I have admitted. I think he knew better.
The third is Creighton’s closing paragraph:
Will you not someday write an article in the Historical Review on the Ethics of History? I have no objection to find my place among the shocking examples. Believe me that I am genuinely grateful to you.
Wow again.
The picture above is of Creighton.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Z
Jan 25 2022 at 9:44pm
With some googling I found the Latin phrase is apparently a reference to a a poem by Horace, The Epodes And Carmen Saeculare. This line is essentially a very fancy way of saying, “I surrender.” This facebook page has the passage in both English and Latin; Creighton’s phrase is in the first sentence.
It’s hard not to be impressed by these two men’s writing as well as their geniality.
David Henderson
Jan 26 2022 at 2:33pm
Thanks, Mark Z.
nobody.really
Jan 26 2022 at 2:20am
Re-reading the Acton quote, I feel suddenly inclined to the opposite conclusion.
Premise 1: I decline the hardline libertarian/anarchist view. If you have multiple people, I think that inevitably someone will wield power; the best we can hope for is to make the government answerable to the governed to the greatest extent feasible.
Premise 2: Acton tells us that this power-wielding “someone” will inevitably be corrupt–not as a result of some extraordinary character defect, but simply as a result of wielding power.
1 + 2: Can we condemn someone for corruption if corruption is unavoidable?
For example, imagine that everyone has biases arising from the vagaries of each person’s background and psychological make-up. Imagine we need someone to render a decision in a criminal trial. Everyone cries out for some kind of judgment, reflecting their own biases–but only the judge will have the power and duty to act. Again, the judge is not unique in having biases; the judge is unique in having power. Is the judge therefore uniquely blameworthy? And are the rest of us blameless by virtue of being powerless?
To elaborate further, consider two scenarios.
A: Everyone but Joe is biased against Joe, who stands accused of a capital crime. Based on my bias, I call for Joe to be executed, but take no other action. The judge shares my bias, and on that basis condemns Joe to death.
B: Everyone but Joe is biased against Joe, who stands accused of a capital crime. Based on my bias, I call for Joe to be executed–and then I kill him.
In each scenario, Joe is killed as a result of someone else’s bias. How blameworthy is the judge under Scenarios A and B? How blameworthy am I under Scenarios A and B?
I suggest that the judge may not bear much blame under any scenario. Someone had to assume the role of judge, and inevitably that someone was going to be biased. If every path was going to lead to the same result, then the choice to follow one path over another has little moral consequence.
In contrast, I think I bear a lot of blame under Scenario B. I had the option to refrain from acting; it wasn’t my responsiblity to pass judgment or sentence on Joe. The judge’s wrongful conduct was unavoidable; SOMEONE was going to act as judge. In contrast, my conduct was entirely discretionary, so I have no one to blame but myself.
Yet if you share this view, aren’t you basically concluding that “the office sanctifies the holder of it”?
Jon Murphy
Jan 26 2022 at 7:17am
Acton explicitly says no. But the judge must be held to a higher standard because of their unique position.
robc
Jan 26 2022 at 10:24am
If we chose those in power by lot, or by force (say, election without choosing to run), then I might tend to agree with you.
But, the people in power choose to take on that responsibility, and with the responsibility comes accepting the higher blame for misbehavior.
In the past, I have suggested that any crime committed by a public official, AS PART OF THEIR JOB AS AN OFFICIAL, should have trebled penalties.
Also notice the key 2nd word in the famous Acton quote: Power tends to corrupt.
Tend implies it is avoidable. Not all men in power are corrupted. So if even 1 can avoid corruption, then it is a choice, not destiny.
nobody.really
Jan 26 2022 at 12:32pm
I’ve argued that Acton’s philosophy about the culpability of those in power is unfair to them because 1) we have a social need for SOMEONE to wield power, and 2) the very act of wielding power renders mere mortals corrupt. robc offers some thought-provoking rejoinders.
Hitler is running for chancellor. Every potential rival is terrified to run against him—except you. By virtue of your celebrity, the public already knows you and has a formed an opinion about you, rendering you less vulnerable to smear campaigns. Yet you know yourself to be a flawed human being. Do you run to keep Hitler from gaining power—and thereby condemn yourself to damnation for assuming the reins of power that you know you will wield imperfectly? But if you refrain, thereby letting Hitler assume the reins, are you blameless for greater atrocities that then ensue? Would it not have been better to accept the reins of power, even at the expense of your own damnation, than to let Hitler do so?
Admittedly, this is a stark hypothetical—but a common dynamic. Pretty much every candidate for office is motivated in part by the desire to keep that other SOB from getting power. Politicians are not praiseworthy because politics is beautiful; politicians are praiseworthy because politics is icky but necessary, and politicians are willing to subject themselves to it.
The Milgram experiment has been replicated around the globe. It shows that, in a given context, people follow the instructions of an authority figure even when those instructions contradict their values—to the point that roughly 2/3 of people will knowingly administer (apparently) lethal shocks to an innocent person.
Yet some people refused. So what conclusions should we draw about 2/3 of our fellow human beings? When they administered the lethal shocks, it was a choice, not a destiny—ergo 2/3 of humanity are moral reprobates? If we discover that the great majority of people fail to live up to our model of human behavior, does that illustrate something wrong with humanity—or with our model?
Alternative hypothesis: Acton says “Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.” Perhaps Acton proposes that we subject flawed powerful individuals to condemnation to achieve the goal of teaching future generations (from which future powerful individuals will arise) to temper their behavior and expect scrutiny. Acton is not advocating “legal responsibility” for the individual; he’s creating an incentive system for society—even if this means withholding compassion for individuals who acted no differently than we would have under similar circumstances. The individual’s reputation must be sacrificed for the good of the group.
robc
Jan 26 2022 at 1:46pm
I am not sure the point of the Milgram example. It proves both mine and Acton’s points. Power tends to corrupt and it is avoidable.
I think the incentive point at the end is strong. There are two things we should do: design a system that encourages the minority that won’t be corrupted to be in power. And second, design a system that encourages bad people to do the right thing (was the latter from Friedman?). To me, also not being an anarchist, that means a small, weak state that doesn’t have a huge amount of power to begin with that can be corrupted; a strong constitution that carefully limits exactly what powers the state has; and a strong legal system to punish those that attempt to exceed that power.
nobody.really
Jan 26 2022 at 3:59pm
The point is to illustrate the idea that behavior is governed not merely–or even primarily–by professed values, but by circumstances. We can predict with a roughly 66% accuracy how a person will behave in the Milgram experiment, even without knowing anything else about that person.
So if we observe a pattern of corruption among those in power, it might indicate that there’s something about the circumstances of wielding power, rather than about the individual, that leads to this outcome. In short, perhaps the problem is systemic, not personal, and we should seek a systemic remedy (e.g., term limits) rather than an individual remedy (e.g., personal condemnation). But if systemic remedies are insufficient, sometimes making examples of individuals–even relatively innocent individuals–is the best we can do.
Again, we may find it optimal to sacrifice the interest of the individual to promote the interest of the group.
Henri Hein
Jan 26 2022 at 1:56pm
Maybe it shows that 1/3 of people are credulous and the rest aren’t.
David Seltzer
Jan 26 2022 at 6:01pm
Henri, I suspect you are aware, in Nazi Germany, the number was probably greater than 2/3. Complement to them was much smaller. Gentiles across Europe hid Jews at mortal risk to themselves. At Yad Vashem, they are honored in the The Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.
KevinDC
Jan 26 2022 at 12:33pm
I tend to disagree. I do share your two premises – I am not a political anarchist, so I accept your first premise, and I agree with Acton that power is corrupting, and tends to make people into worse versions of themselves, so I basically accept premise two as well.
Where I diverge is when you ask “Can we condemn someone for corruption if corruption is unavoidable?” To this I say yes, absolutely – if anything, the inevitability of corruption makes it all the more important to do so. Lots of human failings are pretty much here to stay. The permanence of these shortcomings requires a constant source of pushback to keep them in check.
Brian Klaas recently wrote a book called Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us, which explores these issues. One question he looks at regarding power and corruption is – does power make people corrupt, or do corrupt people seek power? And the answer is, yes, to both. And since corrupt people are more likely to seek power in the first place, one thing we need to account for this is for those in power to be held to unusually high standards, to be put under particularly close scrutiny, and to be subject to harsher sanction for misbehavior. If power attracts the corrupt, it’s important that positions of power also hold the asterisk of “by taking this position your conduct will be put under the microscope and any wrongdoing will be punished much more gravely than for anyone else.” This makes positions of power less attractive to those who would abuse it.
Positions of power are not assigned randomly, they are specifically sought after by people who want that power. And taking that upon yourself puts a special obligation on you. If you’re a judge or a legislator or a cop, that means your actions have special significance. People’s rights, freedoms, and their very lives are in your hands. If you want to take that power on yourself, you need to be willing to say “I am an especially low risk person with especially good judgment and am willing to be held to an especially high standard because of that.” If you won’t accept that but still want the power, you’re exactly the kind of person who needs to be kept out of power.
In your thought experiment, I find the judge more rather than less blameworthy for giving in to his biases and taking action on those biases. The judge took that position of power and swore an oath to uphold the law without passion or prejudice. That makes his failures more worthy of condemnation. Consider the case of Emmett Till. His killers were tried by jury, but let’s just imagine it was a bench trial instead. Now suppose two different scenarios that could play out:
1: A racist member of the town helps Till’s killers avoid arrest and sets them up with new identities and ensures their freedom, due to his racism.
2: A racist judge, despite the overwhelming evidence, uses his authority as judge to acquit Till’s killers and ensures their freedom, due to his racism.
Both people have done something terrible. But I think what the judge did is far worse.
Henri Hein
Jan 26 2022 at 2:13pm
I agree, with this and the rest of your post. I want to add that even those who is getting corrupted by their position need be scrutinized closely. To steel-man nobody.really’s point, the logical extreme of this is that people in power can hold their position for only a single day. On the second day, we will have to assume they have been corrupted by their office, so out they must go. In reality, I think we can expect people to be corrupted at different rates. The above logic kicks in even if the person in power got corrupted while holding office.
robc
Jan 26 2022 at 3:06pm
It is a strong argument in favor of term limits (even if 1 day is silly).
nobody.really
Jan 26 2022 at 3:33pm
Sen. Al Franken expressed frustration with people who demand purity from politics. According to Franken, the only time he ever voted for a politician that he agreed with 100% was when he voted for himself–and even then, only when he voted for himself the first time.
Tom Means
Jan 26 2022 at 12:15pm
Very interesting comments
Typo or faint praise in second line:Lord Action instead of Lord Acton?
David Henderson
Jan 26 2022 at 2:38pm
Good catch. Thanks. As you might imagine, my autocorrect did it.
alvincente
Jan 26 2022 at 1:51pm
On a bit of a tangent, I think Acton’s moral compass is not reliable. He was a supporter of the Confederacy in the civil war, and in correspondence with Robert E. Lee soon after the end of the war, wrote effusively praising not only the secession of the south, but also the Confederate constitution and cause, including this sentence (which is representative of the letter): “Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.” Admittedly this was written 20 years before his letter to Creighton, but still leaves a bad odor.
David Henderson
Jan 26 2022 at 2:41pm
Good point. I remember reading about this but had forgotten.
By the way, the discussion went a different route than I wanted. I do think the discussion was good. But what I liked, and emphasized, was how open Creighton was to changing his mind and admitting that Lord Acton had helped him change it. Also, how appreciative he was.
nobody.really
Jan 26 2022 at 4:08pm
Sorry for derailing the discussion. Perhaps I should have delayed my post until a discussion about open-mindedness and intellectual humility could develop.
That said, I’ve definitely enjoyed the discussion that has developed. Thanks to all.
David Henderson
Jan 26 2022 at 4:11pm
No need to apologize. Just because the discussion went in a different way than I had anticipated doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good discussion. I thought it was, and your initial comment led to a lot of good back and forth. Thanks.
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