Society as a Civil Association or an Enterprise Association
What, then, does Oakshott have to say about the character of moral and political life in the modern world? Oakshott's third major statement, his book On Human Conduct, seeks to delineate positively the forms of moral and political practice that distinguish the modern European state. Oakeshott begins by characterizing morality - at least in the terms in which we know it--as a noninstrumental practice. This is to say that moral life has no end, goal or telos outside itself, and it does not stand in need of any external justification. Further, Oakeshott avers, there is not a single or ideal form of ethical life of which the variety of forms of life of which the variety of forms of life that we find among us are approximations. Rather, moralities are akin to vernacular languages, in that it is the nature of them to be several and divers. If moral life is in this way non instrumental, and so in one sense purposeless, so also are law and the form of civil association that is created by the union of law with morality independent of any specific purpose.
What, then, does Oakshott have to say about the character of moral and political life in the modern world? Oakshott's third major statement, his book On Human Conduct, seeks to delineate positively the forms of moral and political practice that distinguish the modern European state. Oakeshott begins by characterizing morality - at least in the terms in which we know it--as a noninstrumental practice. This is to say that moral life has no end, goal or telos outside itself, and it does not stand in need of any external justification. Further, Oakeshott avers, there is not a single or ideal form of ethical life of which the variety of forms of life of which the variety of forms of life that we find among us are approximations. Rather, moralities are akin to vernacular languages, in that it is the nature of them to be several and divers. If moral life is in this way non instrumental, and so in one sense purposeless, so also are law and the form of civil association that is created by the union of law with morality independent of any specific purpose.
