John Kekes writes in The City Journal: "as revolutions go, the French one in 1789 was among the worst. True, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it overthrew a corrupt regime. Yet what these fine ideals led to was, first, the Terror and mass murder in France, and then Napoleon and his wars, which took hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and Russia. After this pointless slaughter came the restoration of the same corrupt regime that the Revolution overthrew. Aside from immense suffering, the upheaval achieved nothing."

The piece, Why Robespiere Chose Terror, is must reading as much for its value as history as for its relevance to current events. Before dying by one of the chief means he used to institute terror--the guillotine--Robespierre used terror to cultivate the fear so necessary for getting conventional citizens to participate in unconventional horrors.

Robespierre, Kekes writes, "is the prototype of a particularly odious kind of evildoer: the ideologue who believes that reason and morality are on the side of his butcheries. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot are of the same mold. They are the characteristic scourges of humanity in modern times, but Robespierre has a good claim to being the first." One finds a minor league Robespierre in bin Laden, and bin Laden's al Qaeda followers. They won't be the last.

"The ideology was the repository of the true and the good, the key to the welfare of humanity," Kekes writes specifically about the mentality of Robespierre and his cohorts, but generally about ideologues. "Its enemies had to be exterminated without mercy because they stood in the way. As the ideologues saw it, the future of mankind was a high enough stake to justify any deed that served their purpose." He continues: "When [Robespierre] encountered opposition, he knew with absolute certainty that his opponents were either vicious and had to be exterminated for the common good, or were ignorant and had to be coerced for their own good to act as if they were as pure and virtuous as he."

Kekes concludes that Robespierre's progeny--ideologues willing to use terror for political ends--are very much with us today, and understanding Robespierre is of value to understanding them. Force, not discussion, convinces such people to change their evil course. This is largely because many people sincerely believe that the evil that they do is really a good, which is the scariest evil of all.

Though by no means as brutal as Robespierre, I wonder if this commentary could be extended to Winthrop, for example. Is it ever permissable to enlist coercion in the service of virtue?

Clarify, please, if you mean Pilgrim John Winthrop. If so, I think one can compare the Puritans to the Jacobins. Perhaps a better example than Winthrop is Oliver Cromwell, who was obviously in Robespierre's league for brutality whereas Winthrop clearly, as you point out, was not. Your last query is one that used to be one of the most discussed topics among conservatives. Such conversations have given way to discussions of whatever is the latest conservative, mono-worded book title with the celebrity (ostensible) author's picture on the cover (perhaps with an American flag in the background). Anyway, I digress (and conservatives regress). To answer your question: virtue requires free will, which coercion doesn't allow for.

I had meant John Winthrop, Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

I agree that virtue requires liberty in some measure. And it's probably better to err on the side of liberty, but...

If virtue is habit, and laws instill habits, and laws are coercive, then virtue also comes about as a result coercion.

Some would argue that liberty requires virtue. Any attempt to preserve the former at the expense of the latter is incoherent.

These are difficult questions, and I am not qualified to answer them, but I become more of a defender of virtue over liberty with each passing year.

The only type fo freedom of the will *required* for virtue is the type of which it is impossible to deprive a person.

Killing people in pursuit of your own little Heaven on Earth seems quintessentially demonic.

"Killing people in pursuit of your own little Heaven on Earth seems quintessentially demonic."

Isn't this also a statement against capital punishment, etc.?

Kekes shouldn't make use of Stanley Loomis's book, it is pretty notorious for making things up and relying on heavily biased sources.

I agree with his assessment of the hubris of modern political theory; the Enlightenment's view of the state as the repository of virtue. Claes Ryn treats this topic well but I bet Kekes wouldn't like Ryn, judging by his conclusion. Ryn describes the neconservatives as our own nation's "Jacobins." They are the heirs to Robespierre we have to deal with in our own time (I would add neoliberals as well). Kekes conclusion seems to suggest that he would take the contrary view. Kekes suggests that "Negotiation with such people [like Robespierre, the ideological fanatic] can succeed only if we have overwhelming force on our side and have shown ourselves unsqueamish about using it." It is not hard to discern that he has Islamic fanatics like Bin Laden in mind. He then goes on to say that in order to justify the use of force against such fanatics involves: "showing in sickening detail the monstrosities committed in the name of the ideology." In other words, demonstrating that our enemies are completely immoral and irrational (monsters, not humans, commit monstrosities) and that we have virtue on our side. It seems to me that Kekes describes fanaticism well but then falls into it himself.

I prefer understanding Bin Laden, et. al., in realist terms rather than demonizing them. There are perfectly good reasons to pursue and kill such terrorists and to defend ourselves from them w/o having to define them out of humanity.

I don't think anyone seriously feels capital punishment will take us to the promised land. I think it appeals to people's desiring an eye for an eye and personal safety.

Fear seems to be the committment of our liberal leaders these days. They try to instill fear and subsequently anger toward those who are in power. Look at how they use social security and medicaid to instill fear in the seniors, or those who require social programs to "exist". Whatever the neocons are doing, I don't see the fear factor, involved. The libs are using rhetoric rather than guillotines as their modus operendi(sp).Nothing is sacred, and thus they have nosolid foundations upojn which to stand. Every "wind of doctrine" blows them in different directions.

DocDan,

The "fear factor" from the neocons is mainly 1) the global threat of terrorism and 2) the purported imminent threat of wmd's from all sorts of regimes (Iran is the current focus of fear-mongering).

In an related manner you could add the fear by neoconservatism's critics of being tagged with labels (isolationist, racist, anti-semitic, anti-American, etc.) from the neocons.

"Man has a natural aptitude for virtue; but the perfection of virtue must be acquired by man by means of some kind of training. ... Now it is difficult to see how man could suffice for himself in the matter of this training: since the perfection of virtue consists chiefly in withdrawing man from undue pleasures, to which above all man is inclined, and especially the young, who are more capable of being trained. Consequently a man needs to receive this training from another, whereby to arrive at the perfection of virtue. And as to those young people who are inclined to acts of virtue, by their good natural disposition, or by custom, or rather by the gift of God, paternal training suffices, which is by admonitions. But since some are found to be depraved, and prone to vice, and not easily amenable to words, it was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and fear, in order that, at least, they might desist from evil-doing, and leave others in peace, and that they themselves, by being habituated in this way, might be brought to do willingly what hitherto they did from fear, and thus become virtuous. Now this kind of training, which compels through fear of punishment, is the discipline of laws. Therefore in order that man might have peace and virtue, it was necessary for laws to be framed...."

--Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q95,a1.

"at least, they might desist from evil-doing, and leave others in peace,"

There is the personal safety argument. Thomas doesn't bring up the eye for an eye impulse here.