In contemporary Anglophone political philosophy, conservatism hardly makes an appearance. Consider, for example, the volume on Political Philosophy in the Oxford Handbooks series, volumes in which are supposed to show ‘the state of the art.’ ‘Conservatism’ is not in the index, and even the adjective ‘conservative’ appears only rarely, in passing, and usually deprecatingly. There is an intellectual gap. This research stream, comprised of a one-day symposium which introduces a series of seminars to run in 2025/26, is a first step toward filling it.
The symposium and seminars are, then, intended to be philosophical conversations, from a conservative point of view, about the underlying matter of politics: the good life for humans in a political community and its relation to the good life for humans individually. They are designed to enable reflection from an underlying political perspective that is usually excluded, but they will fail in their aim if they become political discussions.
If properly undertaken, the work they are designed to stimulate and further may, however, have wider political repercussions. Partly because there is not much in the way of respectable, philosophical presentation, analysis and support of conservatism, conservative politicians, commentators and journalists have, in general, adopted liberal positions and arguments in public. They differentiate themselves from the Left by promoting a form of liberalism that, of the two values it admits, freedom and equality, privileges the first. But their positions and arguments are in almost no way conservative, by contrast with their often genuinely conservative sentiments, aspirations, language and more practical projects.
A properly worked out conservative political philosophy (better still, a philosophical discourse with different well considered views under the broad conservative umbrella) will help such people in public life, as well as the millions of the public who share their underlying conservatism, to argue in accord with their convictions, rather than apart from – or even at odds with – them.
One way to proceed, therefore, is by description and analysis, starting from the political concepts and convictions held by conservatives and bringing out the principles that underlie them, so as to rework them into a coherent group of arguable positions. Analytic philosophers have been thinking in this way about liberalism for decades.
But political philosophy need not be merely descriptive and analytical. By investigating the metaphysical bases that underlie philosophical discussion of politics, and looking back to a long history of philosophy, work in political philosophy can mould, refine and change existing outlooks, while still remaining within an already established tradition of thought and of how to live. Analytic political philosophy, like the other branches of analytical philosophy, is under-ambitious in its aims for philosophizing. By contrast, this project is founded on bolder expectations about the value of philosophy.
I have chosen Freedom as the topic for the opening seminar, first, because discussing it will bring out very clearly the gap between the ideas, and indeed the rhetoric, used by many who call themselves ‘conservative’ and philosophical conservatism of any kind; and, second, because the topic leads quickly from issues that are easily graspable and much discussed in the world of politics to difficult questions of metaphysics.
Project Lead: Prof. John Marenbon