Liberty Paper 2 – Governing and Human Nature

Every government is designed. Whether set down in a single document or accumulated slowly through custom, whether the work of an assembly or of centuries, a government is an arrangement made by people for the governing of people. And nothing is ever designed without some prior understanding of what it is being designed for. A bridge is built for a certain weight, a house for a certain climate. The engineering may be flawless, but if the assumption beneath it is mistaken, the structure fails.

Government is no different. Every system of government rests upon assumptions about the people it governs: what they are capable of, what may be expected of them, what they must be protected from, and what they cannot safely be trusted with. These assumptions are rarely stated, yet every constitution, every institution, and every law proceeds from them.

This is why political disagreements so often prove resistant to compromise. Two people may praise or condemn the same institution while disagreeing very little about the institution itself. Their disagreement lies deeper. One believes people can generally be trusted to exercise power responsibly; another believes power is seldom exercised without abuse. One believes citizens flourish when left free to govern themselves; another believes social order depends chiefly upon direction from above. They appear to be arguing about government, when in fact they are arguing about human nature.

The institutional consequences are not small. If human beings are naturally inclined toward cooperation and corrupted chiefly by their circumstances, the work of government is to improve those circumstances, and there is little reason to fear a government granted wide latitude to do so. If they are chiefly restrained by external authority, the absence of government is to be feared, and the concentration of power is not a danger but a remedy. If they are capable of governing themselves but only imperfectly, authority must be both granted and withheld, distributed among many hands and made to answer for its use. These are not merely competing theories of government. They are competing claims about what human beings are, and no constitution can remain neutral among them.

Before any constitution can be judged, then, a more fundamental question must first be answered: does it begin with a sound understanding of the people for whom it is written?

Human beings are capable of remarkable generosity. They sacrifice for their children, keep promises at personal cost, and display courage on behalf of strangers. They are also capable of selfishness, cruelty, deceit, and domination—and not only the desperate or the deranged among them, but ordinary people in ordinary circumstances, when they judge it safe to do so. Less obvious, but no less important, they are poor judges of themselves. We excuse in ourselves what we readily condemn in others, and we seldom perceive our own motives with the same scrutiny we apply to those around us. It is for this reason that no one is a fair judge in his own case. Partiality is not the exception among human beings; it is part of the human condition.

Taken together, these observations describe neither angels nor monsters, but ordinary people. Government is necessary because people cannot always resolve their differences justly or accomplish every common task voluntarily. Government is dangerous because those entrusted with authority are those same people. These are not two separate truths. They are one truth viewed from different directions.

This has a consequence that constitutional design cannot escape. Whatever a theory of government assumes about those who are governed, it must also assume about those who govern, for they are the same people. A theory that holds ordinary people incapable of directing their own affairs must explain how those same people become capable when entrusted with public office. A theory that regards people as too selfish to exercise liberty must likewise explain why those same people may safely exercise power. Public office does not remove ambition, self-interest, fear, generosity, or pride. Whatever tendencies make power dangerous in private life remain present in public life.

It follows that every grant of authority is also a declaration of trust, and every limitation upon authority is likewise a judgment about human nature. If the assumptions beneath a constitution are mistaken, no amount of constitutional craftsmanship can fully compensate. The error lies beneath the design itself. A government may distribute authority with extraordinary care, define offices precisely, and enact wise laws, yet still fail because it was built for people as they were imagined rather than as they are.

Nor can the design supply what the material lacks. Human nature is what the designer of a government must build with; it is not something the finished structure can fundamentally change. Law may restrain conduct, but it cannot manufacture the disposition to obey in the absence of restraint. Institutions may reward honesty and punish theft, but they cannot make people honest. Whatever a constitution accomplishes, it accomplishes with the people it was given.

The question, then, is not simply whether a constitution distributes authority wisely. It is whether its distribution reflects a true understanding of the people who will inhabit it. For institutions cannot be built for imaginary beings. They must be built for human beings as they are.

What remains is to ask what institutions, designed for such people, can reasonably hope to accomplish.e generosity. They sacrifice for their children, keep promises at personal cost, and display courage on behalf of strangers. They are also capable of selfishness, cruelty, deceit, and domination—and not only the desperate or the deranged among them, but ordinary people in ordinary circumstances, when they judge it safe to do so. Less obvious, but no less important, they are poor judges of themselves. We excuse in ourselves what we readily condemn in others, and we seldom perceive our own motives with the same scrutiny we apply to those around us. It is for this reason that no one is a fair judge in his own case. Partiality is not the exception among human beings; it is part of the human condition.

Taken together, these observations describe neither angels nor monsters, but ordinary people. Government is necessary because people cannot always resolve their differences justly or accomplish every common task voluntarily. Government is dangerous because those entrusted with authority are those same people. These are not two separate truths. They are one truth viewed from different directions.

This has a consequence that constitutional design cannot escape. Whatever a theory of government assumes about those who are governed, it must also assume about those who govern, for they are the same people. A theory that holds ordinary people incapable of directing their own affairs must explain how those same people become capable when entrusted with public office. A theory that regards people as too selfish to exercise liberty must likewise explain why those same people may safely exercise power. Public office does not remove ambition, self-interest, fear, generosity, or pride. Whatever tendencies make power dangerous in private life remain present in public life.

It follows that every grant of authority is also a declaration of trust, and every limitation upon authority is likewise a judgment about human nature. If the assumptions beneath a constitution are mistaken, no amount of constitutional craftsmanship can fully compensate. The error lies beneath the design itself. A government may distribute authority with extraordinary care, define offices precisely, and enact wise laws, yet still fail because it was built for people as they were imagined rather than as they are.

Nor can the design supply what the material lacks. Human nature is what the designer of a government must build with; it is not something the finished structure can revise. Law may restrain conduct, but it cannot manufacture the disposition to obey in the absence of restraint. Institutions may reward honesty and punish theft, but they cannot make people honest. Whatever a constitution accomplishes, it accomplishes with the people it was given.

The question, then, is not simply whether a constitution distributes authority wisely. It is whether its distribution reflects a true understanding of the people who will inhabit it. For institutions cannot be built for imaginary beings. They must be built for human beings as they are.

What remains is to ask what institutions, designed for such people, can reasonably hope to accomplish.