Contemporary Political Theory, 2005, 4, (63–82)

r 2005 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1470-8914/05 $30.00

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Feature Article: Political Theory Revisited

Political Theory and the Conduct of Faith:

Oakeshott on Religion in Public Life
Lucas Swaine
Department of Government, Silsby Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
E-mail: Lucas.Swaine@Dartmouth.edu

This article examines Michael Oakeshott’s peculiar understanding of religion and

its connection to politics and public affairs in democratic societies. It considers
Oakeshott’s views on both the prominence of religion as an expression of practical
life, and the conciliatory role of the religious imagination in human existence. Upon
inspection, Oakeshott’s notion of a reconciled form of religiosity appears to be
devised to speak to problems of religious enthusiasm in liberal democracies.
Oakeshott’s response to challenges of religious enthusiasm is insufficient and
problematic, however, as is the conservative disposition he advocates for individual
persons in democratic polities.
Contemporary Political Theory (2005) 4, 63–82. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300123

Keywords: Oakeshott; religion; liberalism; conservatism; political theory; political

philosophy

Oh! whither hasten ye, that thus ye press

With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path,
Seeking alike from happiness and woe
A refuge in the cavern of grey death?
O heart and mind and thoughts! what thing do you
Hope to inherit in the grave below?
–P.B. Shelley
Michael Oakeshott’s work on religion and politics is not widely studied even
among scholars with an interest in Oakeshott’s work, despite the fact that
Oakeshott’s concern with religion was long-standing, involved, and integral to
his political thought.1 In this article, I shall undertake to examine Oakeshott’s
understanding of religion and its relation to politics and public life in modern,
liberal democracies. I shall begin with Oakeshott’s critique of metaphysical and
supernatural conceptions of religiosity, subsequent to which I will outline and
discuss the uncommon conception of religion that Oakeshott advances in his
work. I shall contend that Oakeshott’s peculiar notion of a reconciled form of
religion is built with a design: to speak to the problem of religious enthusiasm
in liberal democratic life. I will then move to examine Oakeshott’s alternative
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conception of religiosity critically. I shall integrate Oakeshott’s remarks on

religion with his broader political theory, to consider how well Oakeshott
responds to the challenges of religious enthusiasm, and related issues, displayed
in contemporary liberal democracies.

Oakeshott’s conception of religion

Oakeshott’s concern with religion dates back to the outset of his academic
publications and remains important across his works. He examines religion in
his 1927 essay ‘Religion and the Moral Life’, where he begins with the
proposition that religion is not simply identifiable as morality (Oakeshott,
1993a, 40–42). The view that morality merely consists in obeying God’s
commands, or that religion is simply the revelation of morality as the
command of God, Oakeshott writes, is ‘both immoral and unChristian’ (1993a,
42–43; see Cowling, 1980, 264–265). Instead, Oakeshott remarks that he is
more in favor of seeing religion as the completion of moral existence; religion is
an endless search for perfect good, he states, something that urges us on to
invent and refine our moral being (1993a, 44).
Oakeshott builds upon this view in his 1929 essay, ‘Religion and the World’.
There, he introduces an interesting distinction between two types of characters:
that of the worldly man and the religious man. The worldly man Oakeshott
measures with disdain: he suggests that such a person mistakenly sees human
accomplishment as a source of value, living vainly for a ‘vague, ill-imagined
future’, as Oakeshott puts it (Oakeshott, 1993a, 32, 33, 36). The worldly man
believes in the permanence of the present order, Oakeshott says (1993a, 30);
but this too is deficient inasmuch as it does not appreciate the frail and
transient nature of human affairs and exploits (1993a, 34).2 As Oakeshott
later remarks in On Human Conduct, more than 40 years after ‘Religion and
the World’ was written, some people are shielded under ‘the illusion of affairs’,
but none can stay the rot of time (Oakeshott, 1975, 85). Oakeshott describes
the religious man, in contrast, as a person who is ‘fascinated by no hope of a
Good Time Coming’ (Oakeshott, 1993a, 36). The only immortality that
captivates the religious man is the present kind (1993a, 37). For such a person
thinks that life is too short to hoard, too precious to throw away, and he
possesses things only by present insight, as opposed to, say, the epistemological
authority of others (1993a, 35, 38). In this way, Oakeshott avers, the religious
man seeks freedom from extraneous motives (1993a, 37). And here, Oakeshott
says, one can see how religion must have just one sole precept: memento vivere
(1993a, 37).
From the outset of his scholarship, Oakeshott was critical of metaphysical
and supernatural claims made by religious practitioners and theologians.
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Oakeshott seems clearly to understand that claims of these kinds are

articulated both in religious faiths and theology, contrary to what Terry
Nardin supposes (Nardin, 2001, 67–69; see Oakeshott, 1960, xx ff.).3 But
Oakeshott does not leave the matter at the level of mere critique: instead, he
enhances his conception of the ‘religious man’, articulating a positive view of
religion as practice and claiming that religion is best described as profession
contained in conduct (Oakeshott, 1933, 292; cf. Oakeshott, 1928–1929, 368). In
Experience and Its Modes, Oakeshott argues that religion is a practical activity:
practice and practical activity have an ‘integrative tendency’, he states, and this
integrative element one finds in religion (1933, 292–293). He suggests that the
difference between religion and practical activity is one not of kind, but of
degree (1933, 293); religion is the highest or most complete expression of
practice. In fact, he goes so far as to contend that the general conduct of life is
inseparable from religion, and that religion and practice are ‘in the end, one’
(1933, 292, 293; cf. Bradley, 1927, 313–318, 320–324, 333–334). Oakeshott
apparently retains this conception of practice in his later work: in The Politics
of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism, completed circa 1952, he refers to
practice as an integrative pattern of activity. As he puts it, practice is ‘the
pattern of activity in the modern world’ (Oakeshott, 1996, 6). One also finds
the view intact, mutatis mutandis, still later in On Human Conduct, where
Oakeshott states that religion is a practice (Oakeshott, 1975, 86; see Oakeshott,
1976, 364).
Oakeshott’s proposal that religion is best understood as practice is indeed
curious,4 and it is so in three ways. First of all, despite the fact that one can
currently find amenable trends in theology (see Cupitt, 1988, 2001),
Oakeshott’s religion nevertheless would not sit well with the world’s religious
practitioners, since it apparently denies, inter alia, the realities of Heaven,
resurrection, or noble rebirth (cf. Oakeshott, 1993a, 30, 34). Second,
Oakeshott’s special understanding of ‘religion’ is out of keeping with standard
usage of the term; to be sure, it is sufficiently revised practically to be foreign to
the normal extension of the word. Third, despite his new sense and usage of the
term, Oakeshott nevertheless uses ‘religion’, ‘religious’, and related words in
standard ways, according to their normal extensions, across his works.5
What is one to make of this? Oakeshott’s uncommon use of the term
‘religion’ could be a deliberate maneuver on his part; or it is possible that the
unorthodox usage is simply an inadvertent confusion. I suspect that Oakeshott
is up to something here, however, and I shall give three reasons to think this is
the case. First, Oakeshott is a careful writer, one who is chary in considering
the meanings of terms. For instance, in The Politics of Faith and the Politics of
Scepticism, Oakeshott takes time to discuss the evolution of the meaning of the
phrase, salus populi suprema lex esto (Oakeshott, 1996, 39–44). He also pores
over definitions of ‘security’ in political vocabulary (1996, 99–101). Second,
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Oakeshott goes to some lengths discussing the phenomenon of ambiguity in

language, and his analysis is fairly detailed (1996, 13–18, 21–44, 99–101). This
demonstrates that Oakeshott is sensitive to the matter of multiple meanings of
terms, and to the phenomenon of obscurity in language, further supporting the
notion that his unorthodox use of ‘religion’ must not be unwitting or without
purpose.6 Third, Oakeshott rails against ambiguous uses of language outright.
One might reasonably infer this from Oakeshott’s suggestion that the Tower of
Babel was destroyed ‘by a flood of meaningless words’ (Oakeshott, 1983, 172;
cf. Oakeshott, 1959, 9). But more direct and pointed evidence is given where
Oakeshott actually speaks out against improper usage of ‘religion’, remarking
that equating religion with morality amounts to an ‘abuse of language’
(Oakeshott, 1993a, 40; see Oakeshott, 1976, 354).

Reconciled religiosity
If Oakeshott is up to something with his considerably revised conception of
religion, what, exactly, might be his design? I propose that by criticizing
metaphysical and supernatural religious forms, and by attempting to rework
our very understanding of religion, Oakeshott aims to impact the phenomenon
of religious enthusiasm in liberal democratic societies.
To substantiate this proposition, I should like to note that Oakeshott’s
attacks on supernatural conceptions of religiosity have both descriptive and
normative implications. Here, I will add to the normative commendations and
recommendations that Bhikhu Parekh has identified in Oakeshott’s works
(Parekh, 1979, 501–503; cf. Parekh, 1995, 169). Consider first Oakeshott’s
more properly descriptive criticisms of standard religion: he argues that
supernatural religious claims are false, and implies that a reconstructed view of
religiosity is better suited to our experience of religion as an expression of
practical activity (Oakeshott, 1933, 309; see Oakeshott, 1993a, 29). Oakeshott
also rejects the notion that there is perfection in an afterlife, denying that true
religion has more than one precept; this is in keeping with his insistence that
religion and theology should not be confused, presumably (1933, 293; 1993a,
37). People need religious truths for the coherence of practical existence,
Oakeshott affirms, but this integrative function should not be misapprehended
as ultimate or concrete truth (1933, 309; cf. 1959, 10, 55). As he says in
‘Religion and the World’, the search for perfect good is a battle with no hope of
victory (Oakeshott, 1993a, 44). Those who realize this, Oakeshott claims, ‘no
longer ask for final wisdom, but for the freedom of the life unspotted from the
world’ (1993a, 35).
On more directly normative issues, Oakeshott maintains that supernatural
and metaphysical conceptions of religion are neither good nor helpful to
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persons. I shall distinguish three components of his normative criticism here:

none of them is entailed by Oakeshott’s position on the falseness of
supernatural religious claims, nor is any one a consequence of the view
ascribed to Oakeshott that persons cannot talk meaningfully about a world
transcending human experience (see Gerencser, 2000, chapters 4, 5; see
Oakeshott, 1960, xx, xxxii, lxii–lxiii). First of all, Oakeshott avers that errors of
religious practice are not metaphysical: they do not have to do with some
putative ‘world to come’, or even an impending, ultimate judgment by our
Creator (Oakeshott, 1933, 304). Rather, the errors are those elements of
practice that ‘mislead our conduct and endanger our lives’, as he says (1933,
308). Oakeshott quotes David Hume approvingly here: ‘Generally speaking’,
he reiterates, ‘the errors of religion are dangerous; those of philosophy only
ridiculous’ (1933, 308, note 1). In this light, the problem with religious error, as
Oakeshott sees it, is not just that it consists of false propositions, but that it
often involves enthusiastic religious behavior that eventually brings us to harm.
Second, Oakeshott remarks that not all people have to think that what is
true in religion is true ultimately (Oakeshott, 1933, 294, 308; cf. Oakeshott,
1928–1929, 365–366). And he claims, a fortiori, that people should reject the
‘prejudice’ which assigns an ‘ultimate truth’ to morality and, presumably, to
religious dictates as well (1933, 309). Oakeshott connects this second criticism
to human practice too: people should jettison the notion that morality or
religion is founded on some foundational truth, he argues, not because of the
variety of religious and moral doctrines in the world, the instability of custom,
or the fact that Christian and other moral and religious ideas develop
historically (1933, 309; cf. 1928–1929, 364–365). Rather, one should reject
the view because it wrongly gives an ‘abstract character’ to the experience
of morality and religion (1933, 309).7 This point of Oakeshott’s is consonant
with, but not identical to, his early suggestion that while the ‘historical element’
in Christianity cannot found or ground people’s beliefs about the present
world, it still makes those beliefs impressive (Oakeshott, 1928–1929, passim;
Oakeshott, 1936, 37; see Webb, 1935, 29–31, 64–75, passim; cf. Cowling, 1980,
265–267).
As a third normative salvo, Oakeshott launches an alternative to standard
supernatural and metaphysical conceptions of religion: he intimates that
religion, as a practice, is what people might believe in instead. The ‘central
concern’ of this kind of religious faith, Oakeshott claims famously in On
Human Conduct, is ‘reconciliation to nothingness’ (Oakeshott, 1975, 83–84).8
This notion of reconciliation no doubt applies to conceptions of the afterlife as
well as to the degree of permanence in our affairs and achievements. And with
it evanesces the mirage of an Oakeshottian city of God which, Glenn
Worthington has assured us, ‘lies within human experience’ (Worthington,
2000, 379–381, 382, 386, 394). For insofar as one is properly reconciled to
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nothingness, Oakeshott insinuates, one understands one’s life to be un voyage

au bout de la nuit (1975, 83–84).9 Oakeshott’s comments on reconciled
religiosity help to make sense of his criticisms of Ozymandian hubris; they also
shed light on his contention that the dignity of a religion is found in its
acknowledgement of the human predicament and in the poetic quality of its
practices and offerings (1975, 86; see also 1983, 165). Nor is an advocacy of
reconciliation to nothingness a feature only of Oakeshott’s mature thought:
even in Oakeshott’s early work, one can hear him sounding the ultimate
hollowness of the human condition, advising that people should seek a ‘candid
detachment’ in the face of achievement, even if it is hard to realize (Oakeshott,
1993a, 33). Oakeshott even hints toward the viability of a bonafide religious
revival, stating that a kind of religious revival could occur if people were to find
or rediscover ‘a more daring and more sensitive way of living’ (1993a, 35; cf.
Oakeshott, 1939, xvi, xix–xx). Consider Oakeshott’s exhortation here: ‘[A]
generation which would be religious must be courageous enough to achieve a
life that is really contemporary’ (1993a, 36). Oakeshott’s admonishments of
supernatural and metaphysical religiosity form part of his own poetic
expression of a normative view about religion, i.e., of a better form of
religiosity, by which persons gracefully rise to a serene acceptance of the
vicissitudes of human life (Oakeshott, 1975, 86; 1959, 9, 19, 31–63).10 I shall
call this Oakeshott’s conception of reconciled religiosity.

The problems of religious discord

Oakeshott is right to target the issue of religious enthusiasm in his commentary
on religion. For religious enthusiasm is one of several problems pertaining to
religion in modern liberal democracies. Here, I shall distinguish two basic
forms that such problems take; for the sake of simple reference, I shall call
them the problems of religious discord. Consider first the problem of religious
enthusiasm in modern democratic polities. In modern democracies, religious
devotees regularly speak out on the inappropriateness of particular laws, the
poor performance of political institutions, or the regrettable departure of
morality from society. Yet where citizens give religious reasons for supporting
or censuring policies and laws, secular parties contend that the reasons are
inadmissible in public debate. Such responses frustrate religious parties in their
efforts to be taken seriously in public discussion, fostering a sense of
disenfranchisement among private religious citizens and religious associations
alike.
What is the justification for excluding religious reasons from public debate?
Despite important contributions from John Rawls (1996, 1999), Robert Audi
(2000), and Paul Weithman (2002), there remains no satisfactory resolution to
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this question. Nor has their been a satisfactory account given as to what kind
of religious reasons, if any, should be admitted, along with nonreligious
contributions, to public deliberation on matters of public concern. These
missing arguments have wider implications, inasmuch as their absence prompts
religious devotees to raise serious objections to the fundamental legitimacy of
democratic processes. And without principled guidelines for including or
excluding religious reasons from debates in public policy and law, more zealous
religious devotees will continue to dispute the basic legitimacy of various
democratic processes, clashing with private parties and government on a
variety of public issues (see Swaine, 2003b).
The second manifestation of the problems of religious discord involves the
wide variety of strict and uncommon religious communities found in various
liberal democratic countries around the world. There is no shortage of
examples of such groups: to economize, I shall mention only North American
examples, but one could adduce examples of communities in various other
countries as well. Consider the Old Order Amish, the Pueblo Indians of New
Mexico, extant Mormon polygamists, and the Satmar Hasidim of the Village
of Kiryas Joel in New York State. Each of these theocratic communities has
battled litigation all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, showing
how they do not fit easily or well with existing political and legal structures (see
Swaine, 2001, passim).
I wish to ask whether Oakeshott helps us to assuage or resolve these two
kinds of problems of religious discord that I have outlined. But before doing
so, I shall consider two complaints with respect to the matter of whether such
an inquiry is fair or even headed in the right direction. The first complaint
concerns Oakeshott’s putative belief that politics only has a superficial impact
on practice in society. This objection might grope for footing in Oakeshott’s
suggestion, in ‘The Claims of Politics’, that politics neither reaches very far into
people’s various expressive workings, nor holds sway as the crowning
achievement of a society’s articulations (Oakeshott, 1993a, 93–94). Here, the
objector could propose that Oakeshott’s remarks on religion thus should not
be seen as political criticisms, but rather as more properly philosophical or
historical commentary on current practices of the misguided.
In response to this objection, first of all, it is worth noting that whether
Oakeshott believed that politics only fashions the veneer of society is
independent of whether the notion is true. The mere fact that Oakeshott, or
anyone, might have held as much, says nothing of how deeply politics impacts
upon daily life. Second, Oakeshott elsewhere proposes that politics can indeed
delve beneath the surface and infiltrate the popular mind; and this is a more
plausible suggestion. Consider Oakeshott’s later statement that it is ‘remark-
able’ how distributionist collectivism ‘rapidly penetrated the popular mind’
(Oakeshott, 1993b, 109). As I have suggested, there is cause to think both that
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existing laws and policy issues continue to motivate religious enthusiasts in

ways that are disharmonious with liberal societies, and that political and legal
structures currently stifle the religious free exercise of a particularly thorny
branch of religious communities (see Swaine, 2001, 2003a,b). Politics and law
do indeed impact upon people and their communities, and the problems of
religious discord provide good examples of how this is so.
The second objection that one might raise here concerns the basic
applicability of Oakeshottian theory to existing political challenges in modern,
constitutional democracies, of which the problems of religious discord are but
one type. ‘Oakeshott did not think that political theory was in the service of
answering such questions’, the objector could contend, ‘and as such applying
his work to problems of religious discord in Western democracies is
inappropriate’. In assessing the merits of this complaint, first of all, it is of
course logically irrelevant whether Oakeshott reckoned that political theory
should or could be called upon to help to answer political questions. For the
respective ideas apply or fail to apply quite independent of what their
champions or primogenitors may have believed. However, even if it were a
reasonable complaint that Oakeshott (or any theorist) ‘does not allow some
questions’, the objector should appreciate that Oakeshott himself seemed to
hold that such questions were indeed fair to ask. Consider what Oakeshott says
of his The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism, viz., that the
manuscript’s account is ‘a guide for political reasoning’, and that the text
supplies ‘a frame within which to set our own thoughts to work’ (Oakeshott,
1996, 125; cf. Oakeshott, 1933, 303, 320; 1976, 360; Quinton, 1978, 93).
Nor would Oakeshott’s suggestion that his manuscript is a guide for
political reasoning be out of keeping with what he takes to be the historical
practice of great political theorists. In Morality and Politics in Modern Europe,
Oakeshott states that political thinkers are people ‘reflecting upon a current
activity with a view to making it intelligible to themselves and perhaps to
modifying its current conduct’ (Oakeshott, 1993b, 5; cf. Grant, 2000, 44–45).
With these points in hand, asking whether Oakeshott helps to provide any
possible solutions for problems of religious discord in modern liberal
democracies does not appear to be unfair, on Oakeshott’s very terms. Nor is
it out of keeping with what one might normally ask of a political theorist’s
work; and so there appears to be no obvious reason not to continue with this
line of inquiry.

Oakeshott’s conservative disposition

There is not exactly a surfeit of express, direct discussion of the problems of
religious discord in Oakeshott’s writings. This is what one finds generally with
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regard to political issues and controversies: Oakeshott does not tend to involve
himself directly with arguments or contributions of his own (see Grant, 2000,
23–24, 26–27, 30). Timothy Fuller gives a clue to Oakeshott’s position on the
matter of religious enthusiasm, however, where he says that Oakeshott is
disdainful of most religious declarations (Oakeshott, 1993a, 3). Fuller’s
suggestion fits with various comments of Oakeshott’s: in ‘Rationalism in
Politics’, for instance, Oakeshott rails against ‘sanctimonious politicians’ who
preach an ideology of parental authority, on the one hand, but who destroy
families on the other (Oakeshott, 1991, 41). Elsewhere, Oakeshott seems to
suggest that sanctimony is only one of several unwanted gifts in the parcel of
politics. These ideas of Oakeshott’s have deep roots, germinating first in ‘The
Claims of Politics’, where he wryly states that ‘political activity involves a
corruption of consciousness from which society has continually to be saved’
(Oakeshott, 1993a, 95). For Oakeshott, politics amounts to repeated exercises
in obscurity, muddling, and ‘counterfeit piety’, as he says (Oakeshott, 1996, 19;
see Parekh, 1979, 493 ff.; 1995, 168–170, 173–181). He writes (1996, 19):
Politics at any time are an unpleasing spectacle. The obscurity, the muddle,
the excess, the compromise, the indelible appearance of dishonesty, the
counterfeit piety, the moralism and the immorality, the corruption, the
intrigue, the negligence, the meddlesomeness, the vanity, the self-deception,
and finally the futility,
Like an old horse in a pound,
offend most of our rational and all of our artistic susceptibilities.
Oakeshott’s sardonic commentary helps to clarify his view of politics, and it
does have some implications for his assessment of religious enthusiasm.
However, in his essay ‘On Being Conservative’, Oakeshott provides thoughts
that bear even more strongly, if indirectly, on religious enthusiasm and related
concerns. ‘On Being Conservative’ contains Oakeshott’s famous description of
the ‘conservative disposition’, and it expresses more fully Oakeshott’s
understanding of how to handle the problems of religious discord mentioned
above (Oakeshott, 1991, 409, 407–435).
For Oakeshott, a conservative disposition properly applies to individual
persons and their particular characters, as well as to government and its
character. Consider first the individual person who has a conservative
disposition. Oakeshott writes that such a person is not fond of change, but
is instead generally ‘averse’ to it (Oakeshott, 1991, 409–410). People with a
conservative temperament will be ‘cool and critical’ when faced with
suggestions to modify the existing order (1991, 412), because they know that
they have something to lose whenever changes occur, and they realize that
great transformations or upheavals risk great losses. As such, Oakeshott
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submits, the person with a conservative character is ‘not an ardent innovator’

(1991, 411); quite to the contrary, the conservative is scornful of those with
grand plans for societal innovation. As Oakeshott describes him, the
conservative will be in favor of a sceptical style of politics, due in no small
part to his desire to avoid the creation of a barbarous political system
(Oakeshott, 1996, 32–37). Whereas others will be enamored of the dreamy
prospects of new societies or an everlasting happiness in the world to come, the
person with a conservative disposition enjoys instead what is available, taking
pleasure in more simple, available activities, preferring, as Oakeshott writes,
‘present laughter to utopian bliss’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 408).11
However, Oakeshott takes pains to deny that people are conservative
because of their religious beliefs (Oakeshott, 1991, 423–424). First of all, as
Anthony Quinton has noted (1978, 92), Oakeshott argues that one has neither
to hold, nor to suppose, that religious beliefs are true, in order to have a
conservative disposition. This allows Thomas Hobbes to qualify as a
conservative, as well as sceptics such as David Hume and Michel Eyquem de
Montaigne, whom Oakeshott admires greatly (see Coats, 2000, chapters 1, 7;
Worthington, 2000).12 Second, Oakeshott indicates that if a person is religious
in the normal sense of the term, they are not ipso facto conservative, nor is their
conservatism implied otherwise. He gestures to the Puritans, who certainly
lacked a conservative disposition in the Oakeshottian sense, promoting instead
what Oakeshott characterizes as the quintessential politics of faith (Oakeshott,
1996, 59–60). The Puritan example shows how the politics of faith has its
‘religious versions’ (1996, 58–68; see Cowling, 1980, 253–254, 273–274, 463),
even though contrary renderings of the politics of faith are not grounded in
religious doctrines. Philosophisme counts as a nasty nonreligious politics of
faith, on Oakeshott’s reckoning: that ‘backwater’ doctrine bent on social and
political amelioration was adopted by ‘the most credulous of men’, people
‘unconscious of [their] vulgarity’ (Oakeshott, 1934, 256, 257, 259). Oakeshott
identifies Jeremy Bentham as a ‘typical’ philosophe, an unoriginal thinker
whose mind was stacked and cluttered with prejudice, one who had forgotten
or simply ignored the very ratio decidendi for the sweeping social reforms he
advocated (Oakeshott, 1934, 259, 274–275, 279). Third, the religious person F
again in the standard sense of the term ‘religious’ F may be more likely to be a
rationalist or to adhere to a politics of faith, ceteris paribus. But there too, in
Oakeshott’s estimation, one finds only a correlation and not a necessity. One
must leave way for the reconciled, religious man, whose virtues Oakeshott
extols, and who enjoys the sort of disposition that Oakeshott wants to allow as
a real possibility (Oakeshott, 1993a, 35; 1975, 86).
Along with this conservatism at the level of individual persons, Oakeshott
holds that a conservative disposition is appropriate for government, where one
finds complex societies with diverse populations and histories such as those of
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the United Kingdom or North America. Here, the conservative disposition

quietly presses for a deportment similar to that of the conservative man.
Oakeshott elaborates the notion by suggesting that the government’s role
should be both limited and specific (Oakeshott, 1991, 424; cf. Oakeshott,
1993a, 93). Governing, as Oakeshott puts it, ‘[is] not the management of an
enterprise, but the rule of those engaged in a great diversity of self-chosen
enterprises’ (1991, 429). However, while government should be restricted and
its roles specified, Oakeshott notes, it still must keep the peace. He argues that
government must establish rules of procedure when cases of dispute inevitably
arise: it is an important function of government ‘to deflate, to pacify and to
reconcile’ the various discordant groups and parties in complex polities,
each with their differing views and notions of the good life (1991, 427, 428,
432; see Fuller, 2001, 32). Oakeshott is clear: it is not that government
should do nothing with respect to society; for persons need the rule of law,
even though it ‘bakes no bread’ (Oakeshott, 1983, 136–141, 164; cf. Quinton,
1978, 94).
Oakeshott also contends that the role of government is not to impose
beliefs, to tutor or direct people, or to shepherd persons toward some
elusive truth (Oakeshott, 1991, 427). In ‘The Rule of Law’, he appears to
support a version of political neutrality, insofar as he argues that laws
themselves are not designed to promote or hinder any substantive interest
(Oakeshott, 1983, 137, 161). Many rulers, governing bodies, and institutions
have failed to adopt a conservative temperament, however, succumbing to
idealistic temptations instead. Guiding and schooling citizens toward some
incomparable, exalted end, and promoting some particular, substantive
interest, is the mistaken and purblind business of the politics of faith, a mode
of political thinking where people believe that an ‘omnicompetent’ govern-
ment is or would be well-suited to the service of perfecting people and
human circumstances (Oakeshott, 1996, 23, 27, 45, 57). Oakeshott observes
that the religious version of collectivism has this defect: he gestures to Marxism
by way of exemplification, interestingly, suggesting that Marxists are the
Fifth Monarchy Men incarnate (1996, 53–57; 1993b, 89, 96; see Cowling, 1980,
269–270). He also identifies Francis Bacon, of all people, as the chief architect
of the politics of faith; but surely Oakeshott’s Nimrod, infamous from the
story of the Tower of Babel, was the real progenitor of that mode of
thinking (1996, 52 ff.; see 1975, 289–292; 1976, 357). It was Nimrod who
declared to his besieged cohort that God counted among their enemies
(Oakeshott, 1983, 170). As Oakeshott recounts the tale, Nimrod rhetorically
asked whether God was not to blame for the Babelians’ plight (1983, 179).
Oakeshott tells of the Babelians’ leprous social purpose to build a tower to
Heaven. It was at its height a lofty monument to nothingness; but the
tower collapsed into its rightful place in the end, sadly consuming so many
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Babelians in the process, and reducing all survivors to pauperized, burnt-out

cases (1983, 183).
Nevertheless, Oakeshott maintains that political conservatism is indeed
possible for liberal democratic polities, just as the conservative disposition is
viable for individual persons. Oakeshott admits that all political virtues and
vices are ‘infected’ with rationalism, pointing out that ‘every historic situation
in modern politicsy[has] particles of both styles of [the] politics [of faith and
skepticism]’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 25–26; 1996, 59; see Fuller, 2001, 30). Political
conservatism is a live prospect for ‘a people disposed to be adventurous and
enterprisingy[and] in love with change’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 434). It is possible
even in diverse and pluralistic societies where many citizens lack a conservative
disposition, and despite the fact that one will never find a sceptical
conservatism entirely free from the politics of faith.

The conservative disposition disarmed

Oakeshott does well to contend that it is not the business of government to
impose a conservative disposition upon a populace, even if such a disposition
were in some sense the best for persons to adopt. Importantly, Oakeshott
nowhere suggests that a sceptical, conservative government would direct its
populace toward a conservative disposition as an unintended consequence of
governing. And so his resistance to perfectionist government is admirable:
Oakeshott does not propose or even insinuate that a politically conservative
government would turn people against their initiatives, their penchant for
change, or their non-conservative dispositions generally. Instead, he speaks
against such attempts; and indeed, he elegizes a little, stating that ‘we are not a
slothful or a spiritless people’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 435). Political conservatism
can be for the ‘adventurous and enterprising’ citizens found across the liberal
democratic polities of the Western world, Oakeshott declares, including those
people in love with change and who are unwilling to adopt a conservative view
(1991, 434–437; see Grant, 2000, 26).
Second, Oakeshott must be commended for suggesting that smaller and more
limited government is better, since governments have a knack for failing
miserably in their attempts to realize grand plans for human perfection. I shall
not undertake to bolster Oakeshott’s claim here; I wish merely to mention that
one agrees with the proposition. Oakeshott overstates the case, perhaps, where he
reflects that the politics of faith leads to ‘certain’ self-destruction (whereas the
politics of scepticism only portends probable or likely self-destruction)
(Oakeshott, 1996, 113); but he is right to note that the costs for such perfectionist
endeavors are high. Governments risk destroying social cohesion if they do not
refrain from trying to impose a single code on their citizens (Oakeshott, 1993b,
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17), and there has been no durable success where governments have sought to do
so (1993b, 93; 939, xxiii, no. 1; 1983, 193). The politics of faith not only puts
entire peoples at risk of government oppression, it leaves them at last, one could
say, scattered round the decay of colossal wrecks.
However, despite these strong elements, Oakeshott’s work on religion and
reconciled religiosity fails to inform the challenges of religious enthusiasm in
any satisfactory way. First of all, although he tries to reconstruct the term
‘religion’, Oakeshott nevertheless continually refers to religion, religions, and
religiosity, as per the normal, colloquial extensions of the respective words.
This presents a dilemma: for by referring to supernatural and metaphysical
religious faiths as religions, Oakeshott risks edifying the very phenomena he
wishes to attack, by affirming that they are, in the end, valid forms of religion. I
do not mean to suggest that there is no way to rework existing terms for, say,
the purpose of social-scientific research; the point is rather that Oakeshott
backfires where he attempts to recalibrate common understandings of
‘religion’, since his case is obscured by his own inability to outstep the
standard usage of terms that he criticizes.
Oakeshott’s incapacity to escape the terms of common language is a
predicament, but it is not the gravest concern at hand. For Oakeshott’s case in
favor of reconciled religiosity is short on argumentation and wants for proper
support and justification; and this second problem is far more serious.
Oakeshott merely asserts, for example, that metaphysical and supernatural
religious claims are false, and that true religion has only one precept F but the
declarations alone certainly do not suffice to justify such controversial
suggestions. Oakeshott’s advocacy on behalf of reconciliation to nothingness,
similarly, is a controversial point with decided metaphysical and theological
implications; after all, whether nothingness ultimately is the case remains to be
seen. In fairness, Oakeshott does marshal some points that could count toward
a justification for his conception of reconciled religiosity: he claims, for
instance, that if religious truths were concretely true, their value would
disappear (Oakeshott, 1933, 309). He also suggests, in The Voice of Poetry in
the Conversation of Mankind, that images invoked in one ‘universe of discourse’
cannot appear in any other (Oakeshott, 1959, 37). But the view is not
elaborated to a satisfactory extent. Discursive subterfuge, no matter how
eloquent, is but a laboursaving device, and provides in the end no lasting
substitute for reasons and argumentation.
Third, consider what might happen were Oakeshott to succeed in changing
people’s views of religion and religiosity. What if people were actually to
embrace Oakeshott’s reconciled religiosity, accepting that religion really is
reconciliation to nothingness, the fullest expression of an intricate, integrative
practice, with poetry in its ritual and exposition? I should think it fair to
suppose, first of all, that Oakeshott’s understanding of reconciled religiosity
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would harmonize quite well with a conservative disposition, and so one might
conjecture that a wide acceptance of reconciled religiosity would propitiate, if
not entail, the adoption broadly of such a disposition in citizens. But even if a
wide spectrum of people were to embrace a reconciled religiosity and a
conservative disposition, the problems of religious discord would remain. For
the broad adoption of reconciled religiosity would not ipso facto impact or
change the behaviors of various recalcitrant, non-conservative groups and
individuals who adhere strongly to strict and comprehensive conceptions of the
good. There would remain those members of complex, liberal societies
unmoved by Oakeshott’s conception of reconciled religiosity: here one can
adduce the Amish, the Satmar Hasidim, the Christian Right, or more zealous
Muslims as examples. Oakeshott would have to disabuse those people of their
religious beliefs, and perhaps even of their very conceptions of God, it seems, in
order truly to make headway on the problems of religious discord, and that is
rather a tall order, especially since no argument as to why religious devotees
ought to take up a more conservative disposition is given anywhere in
Oakeshott’s work. If religious enthusiasts are the persons whose views one
truly wishes to impact, one would do well to supply stronger theological
reasons for them to alter or forswear their zealous dispositions, rather than
providing mere oblique suggestions to the effect that the enthusiasts do not
really have a religion, properly understood (see Swaine, 2003a,b).
One might respond to this third point by suggesting that the criticism is unfair
to Oakeshott, since it overlooks Oakeshott’s insistence that a properly
conservative government would not enforce a specific conception of the good,
undertake radically to change people’s beliefs, or launch its own zealous program
to eradicate uncommon religious practice. But I do not wish to take issue with
these elements of Oakeshott’s position on the conservatism of government. What
I should like to propose, instead, is that Oakeshott’s advocacy of a conservative
disposition in members of the body politic undermines the viability of his
political vision. That is to say, the personal conservatism of individuals in
modern, liberal democracies would impact adversely, and perhaps fatally, the
political conservatism of their governments. A conservative disposition broadly
found in citizens would lead to a poorly ordered political system, one that could
not reasonably be expected to uphold Oakeshott’s commitment to limited and
effective governance able to deflate, pacify, and reconcile parties in dispute
(Oakeshott, 1991, 427, 432). Why is this so?
First of all, individuals with Oakeshott’s conservative disposition, being
averse to change and suspicious of costly remedies for alleged problems, will
not be well inclined to look to see whether their polities suffer from social or
political ailments. This concern is independent of the conservative’s suspicion
of remedies for problems, which has tended to be the focus of discussion. It is
also different from Hanna Pitkin’s worry that tradition displays a ‘character-
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istic inabilityyto cope with crises’, or her complaint that some traditions are
not worth preserving (Pitkin, 1974, 261–262 ff.). For the question here is, so
long as problems of religious discord do not affect him directly, or threaten
with imminent harm, what will motivate the conservative citizen to look to see
whether such problems exist or need to be addressed? Second, as far as
motivational matters go, one might even expect Oakeshott’s conservative
person to be unwilling, not just unmotivated, to check for problems in social
and political life, since such critical explorations often are first steps toward
unhappy transformations. One notes that there is little mention of justice or
injustice in Oakeshott’s work; indeed, a concern for justice is conspicuously
absent as a motivating factor directing political action in conservative citizens,
as Steven Gerencser has noted (2000, 154, 161–165; see Oakeshott, 1991, 57; cf.
Franco, 1990a, 234–35).13
Oakeshott’s conservative will be poorly disposed to seeking out political
ailments that may exist but have yet properly to be diagnosed. But even where
Oakeshott’s conservative citizens witness discord between secular and religious
parties, they may ignore it, or try to explain it away as not really a problem at
all, or they may suggest that it is not government’s business to get involved with
such issues until they threaten to spiral out of control. And here one can see a
third, serious shortcoming. People with Oakeshott’s conservative disposition
will be more inclined to think that status quo is just fine and that alleged
problems of religious discord are not genuine challenges needing to be
addressed. As such, if one accepts that the problems of religious discord are
serious and insidious, Oakeshott’s conservative disposition proves to be deficient
in a third way. The Oakeshottian conservative may want to allow zealous or
uncommon religious devotees to practice their religion in peace; but with his
focus elsewhere, he will not be inclined to attend to the difficulties these religious
practitioners raise. The conservative disposition is in this way deficient on
Oakeshott’s very terms, since, as I have argued, Oakeshott seeks to address and
assuage the problems of religious enthusiasm in modern, liberal democracies,
with his critique of metaphysical and supernatural religion, his critical remarks
on religious enthusiasm, and his advocacy of reconciled religiosity.
One might finally object, in defence of Oakeshott’s conservative disposition,
that these concerns I have aired regarding problems of religious discord are
overblown. Religious enthusiasm, for instance, is hardly a grave or pressing
matter in liberal democracies, one could contend. It is true that I have
proceeded by asking whether Oakeshott’s work helps positively to inform the
challenges of religious enthusiasm in contemporary liberal democracies. But
here I must confess that religious enthusiasm has served as a stalking-horse for
a different quarry: namely, Oakeshott’s conservative disposition itself. For the
challenges of religious enthusiasm are examples of just one kind of problem for
liberal democracies. They are the problems that are weighty, insidious, and
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persistent, but whose manifestations are not always obvious. Now, even if one
were to refuse to accept that religious enthusiasm is a serious matter, a variety
of problems could be adduced that fit the description. Examples might include
racial tensions, grinding poverty, nationalist fervor, or even drug abuse
(cf. Rotenstreich, 1976, 126–128). The darker manifestations of these problems
are not always visible on the surface of society, where Oakeshott seems to think
that much of politics plays itself out; but they can materialize in race riots,
heightened crime, and a variety of other undesirable modes of conduct.
The lack of vigilance in Oakeshottian conservatives makes them prone to
missing subtle, but no less serious, moral and prudential problems in the body
politic. For Oakeshott’s conservative disposition disarms citizens of their
motivations and placates their sensibilities. It also stultifies the Oakeshottian’s
rightful, primary concern to keep government limited, specific, and free from
the perfectionists’ grand designs. After all, if politics generally is as bad as
Oakeshott claims (Oakeshott, 1996, 19), then citizens will need a special sense of
vigilance in order to arm themselves against government abuse: even
governments vowing to empower a ‘judicious ‘lordship’’ have proven to be
wellsprings of outrageous monstrosities, something no Oakeshottian would
deny (Oakeshott, 1975, 304, note 3 at 305). However, a liberal disposition, one
motivated by a concern for justice, for liberty, and for autonomy, one that is a
reflective friend to toleration and a true enemy of state oppression, a liberal
disposition can help citizens to devise and properly protect limited institutions
and the rule of law. A liberal disposition can invigorate and prepare citizens not
only to be vigilant but also to participate politically as well, even in mitigating
the problems of religious discord. What is more, a liberal disposition readies
citizens to criticize their own political officials, their laws, their offices, even
their own constitution, with an active, normative purpose, instead of leaving
them prone to be uninvolved. Such a readiness simply does not characterize the
inclination of the Oakeshottian conservative, no matter how desperately one
tries to bend Oakeshott into shape as a liberal who ‘[reformulates] theytradi-
tion’ (see Franco, 1990a, 9, 160–161; 1990b, 411, 420, passim).
In fairness to Oakeshott, he does deliberate somewhat on this matter of
incorporating reflection and criticism in human practice. In his first essay
entitled ‘The Tower of Babel’, Oakeshott advocates a form of moral life which
is, as he describes it, a sensible ‘mixture’ of habit and reflection, one by which
persons retain their power to criticize political institutions and offices
(Oakeshott, 1991, 477). This weighs against Nathan Rotenstreich’s contention
that Oakeshottian politics cannot accommodate challenges to the traditions of
existing institutions, or that Oakeshott’s view ‘presents perpetuation as the sole
value’ (Rotenstreich, 1976, 119, 122). For the form of life of which Oakeshott
approves can ‘reform andyexplain itself’, as he puts it; and when corrective
action is called for, by more enthusiastic members of a populace, action and
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practice will retain ‘appropriate intellectual confidence in its moral standards

and purposes’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 477; cf. Kestenbaum, 2002, 102, 108).
Oakeshott argues that an arrangement of this kind would not ‘deprive moral
ideals of their power as critics of human habits’, but rather would allow for
criticism of social and political practices, simply tempering such critical actions
by making habit more prominent and conduct confident (Oakeshott, 1991,
477–480; 1976, 356; cf. Devigne, 1994, 120–121). Oakeshott presumably means
to leave room for the important ‘ingredient of criticism, of questioning, and of
non-acceptance’ that he describes in On Human Conduct, as it pertains to
political controversies over the desirability of maintaining or altering existing
arrangements in democratic polities (Oakeshott, 1975, 163–165 ff.; see
Gerencser, 2000, 155, 161–162).
However well intended Oakeshott’s view might be here, it is difficult to see
how it squares with the conservative disposition as Oakeshott understands it.
For the problem remains that those who adopt Oakeshott’s conservative
disposition shall not easily be moved to involve themselves in political matters,
critical or otherwise. Nothing in Oakeshott’s advocacy of a balanced mixture
of reflection and habit suggests that those with a conservative disposition will
or should be involved in any political sense. Given Oakeshott’s remarks
elsewhere, with regard to the withdrawal of conservatives from political and
public affairs, it seems that conservative citizens simply will not be those who
participate in public discourse; that untidy matter will be left to others.
Furthermore, it is unclear as to why those with a conservative disposition,
sceptical of grand social planning and concerned about the creeping tyranny of
rationalist programs and policies, should avoid public or political participa-
tion. For if Oakeshott is correct in his assessment of the social constitution of
liberal democratic polities, there will be a great many ‘anti-individuals’ in the
mass of citizens (Oakeshott, 1991, 370–371, 380–383). Oakeshott’s conserva-
tives abhor the anti-individuals’ tendency to seek rationalist leaders ready to
march an entire polity down a primrose path to destruction. But they will
nevertheless be disposed to leave political criticism, and other forms of political
participation, to those fervent persons inclined to provide it. And so, if one
accepts Oakeshott’s assessment of the perils of government oppression and
majority tyranny, it will be a dangerous game for people to adopt a
conservative disposition in the Oakeshottian sense.
If limited and specific government is to function well or justly, it will do so by
virtue of the actions of liberal citizens, those who are not dispossessed of their
vigilance, their capacity for a moral sense, or their willingness truly and openly to
consider change to the existing order. Strangely, Oakeshott seems to have
recognized that an insensitivity to change is a ‘characteristic failure’ of the politics
of scepticism (Oakeshott, 1996, 107). I submit that it is more properly a weakness
of the conservative disposition itself. For the mind sceptical of grand social plans
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80

can and should be more active than Oakeshott allows. Deflating, pacifying, and
reconciling parties in dispute often require innovative thinking on the part of
private citizens and institutions alike. Oakeshott was surely right to claim, as he
did in The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, that ‘disenchantment
commonly induces lethargy’ (Oakeshott, 1959, 38). Unfortunately, there is a cost
associated with this observation. And, ironically, it is this: that those
conservatives who adopt an Oakeshottian view of politics will not be the ones
who stave off the government oppression that they so deeply, and rightly, oppose.

Date submitted: 10 February 2003

Date accepted: 22 April 2003

Notes

1 Prepared for the Inaugural Conference of the Michael Oakeshott Association, London School
of Economics & Political Science, September 3–5, 2001. I thank Aryeh Botwinick, David
Boucher, John Wendell Coats, Jr, Antony Flew, Timothy Fuller, John Kekes, Kenneth
Minogue, James Bernard Murphy, Keith Sutherland, and the editors and referees of
Contemporary Political Theory for helpful commentary and remarks.
2 Glenn Worthington beholds Augustinian imagery in Oakeshott’s 1929 essay (Worthington,
2000, 379). Cf. John Coats, who describes what he calls the ‘very Augustinian’ character of
‘Religion and the World’ (Coats, 2000, 33–34, 37–38). See also Timothy Fuller’s commentary
(2001, 29–33); cf. Oakeshott (1975, 85, no. 1).
3 ‘[A] religion may evoke a reflective consideration of its postulates,’ Oakeshott writes; this is
distinct from the ‘theology [that] may emerge from this engagement’ (1975, 81). Oakeshott adds
that religious faiths often provide ‘a somewhat prosaic consolation’ to human conditions: ‘a
belief that present ills will hereafter be addressed’ (1975, 82). Cf. Oakeshott’s early remark that
religion ‘demands not that the necessity for the existence of what it believes should
be provedybut to be made intensely aware of the actual existence of the object of belief’
(1928–1929, 368).
4 Fuller suggests that Oakeshott’s religious outlook has an ‘idiosyncratic nature’ (Oakeshott,
1993a, 1). Terry Nardin describes Oakeshott’s early religious views as ‘Bradleyian’ (2001,
63–64). Cf. Wells (1994, 129–135).
5 See Oakeshott (1928–1929, 365, 368–369; 1933, 292, 293; 1975, 81, 82, 83, 86). See comparable
remarks from Oakeshott’s first essay entitled ‘The Tower of Babel’ (Oakeshott, 1991, 484). In
‘Religion and the World’, Oakeshott discusses religion, ‘the religious man’, and ‘the religious
life’; but he makes no reference to distinctions between religions, nor does he even hint that
authentic religion allows for such distinctions, interestingly (1993a, 33, 35–37, passim).
6 See Clement Webb’s discussion of Oakeshott’s use of the words ‘God’ and ‘history’, and what he
argues is Oakeshott’s deficient understanding of the historical element in Christianity (1935, 68,
73; see also 29–31, 64–75).
7 Curiously, Oakeshott proposes that if religious truths were concretely true, their value would
disappear (Oakeshott, 1933, 309; see also 127 ff.). Cf. Franco (1990a, 64, 244); Webb (1935,
64–65, 68); Cowling (1980, 266–267).
8 The first mention of reconciliation in Oakeshott’s work, in the context of religion, seems to be
found in Experience and Its Modes, where Oakeshott writes: ‘Practical activity itself is the
reconciliation of the world of ‘what is here and now’ and the world of ‘what is valuable’. It is not

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the reconciliation of them as worlds, rather it is the modification of the world of practical
existence in terms of the world of value’ (Oakeshott, 1933, 307). Cf. F. H. Bradley, who in his
concluding remarks to Ethical Studies submits that there is a ‘reconciliationyto which we must
come, if we mean to follow the facts of religious consciousness’ (1927, 324).
9 In his introduction to Hobbes’ Leviathan, Oakeshott states that ‘it is characteristic of
political philosophers that they take a sombre view of the human situation: they deal in
darkness’ (1960, x).
10 Cf. Robert Devigne, who concludes crassly that for Oakeshott ‘God is Dead’ (1994, 191).
11 Cf. Oakeshott’s description of the poetic disposition, according to which one is ‘disposed to
choose delight rather than pleasure or virtue or knowledge’ (Oakeshott, 1959, 62). The
conservative disposition one might contrast with the view of the rationalist collectivist, whose
outlook Oakeshott describes pinchbeck in the first person: ‘[By] reason of temperamental or
circumstantial incapacity, on account of poverty, weakness, or misfortune, I find myself unable
to share this enterprising life that is afootyI have been deprived of the sense of belonging to a
community but I have neither the intellectual nor the material resources to set up on my own’
(Oakeshott, 1993b, 90).
12 In late private correspondence, Oakeshott stated that he had re-read ‘all that St. Augustine
wrote’, commenting that Augustine was one of ‘the two most remarkable men who ever lived’,
Montaigne being the other (Riley, 1991, 335).
13 Consider Oakeshott’s proposition on adducing arguments from justice for the enfranchisement
of women in Britain: ‘Arguments drawn from abstract natural right’, Oakeshott states, ‘from
‘justice,’ or from some general concept of feminine personality, must be regarded as either
irrelevant, or as unfortunately disguised forms of the one valid argument; namely, that there was
an incoherence in the society which pressed convincingly for remedy’ (1991, 57). See Parekh
(1979, 497); cf. Pitkin (1974, 259, 264).

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