154 The Nature of Political Theorynotdetermined by them. No universal, whether deontological or consequential, will
overcome this contingency. In this sense, Oakeshott implicitly rejects all the liberal
‘justice-based’ arguments focused on thin universalism. Thus, John Rawls and Brian
Barry’s arguments are all implicitly excluded. There may well be similarities and
overlaps between moral and political languages. Oakeshott is prepared to acknow-
ledge this. He remarks, for example, that ‘there should be many such languages in the
world, some perhaps with familial likenesses in terms of which there may be profitable
exchange of expressions, is intrinsic to their character’. However, he continues, ‘This
plurality cannot be resolved by being understood as so many contingent and regret-
table divergences from a fancied perfect and universal language of moral intercourse
(a law of God, a utilitarian “critical” morality, or a so-called “rational morality”)’. He
adds, quite presciently for the last three decades of the twentieth-century normative
political theory, that it is hardly surprising ‘that such a resolution should have been
attempted: human beings are apt to be disconcerted unless they feel themselves to
be upheld by something more substantial than the emanations of their own con-
tingent imaginations. This unresolved plurality teases the monistic yearnings of the
muddled theorist, it vexes a morality with ecumenical leanings, and it may disconcert
an unfortunate who, having “lost” his morality (as others have been known to “lose”
their faith), must set about constructing one for himself and is looking for uncon-
taminated “rational” principles out of which to make it’ (Oakeshott 1975: 80–1). This
is a quite apt description for the Rawlsian and post-Rawlsian generation of Kantians
and utilitarians.
In the above sense, human nature can never be a given datum of experience. As
Oakeshott observes, there are multiple theorems about human nature throughout
the history of thought. This is of interest, but Oakeshott denies any possibility of
determinism or genetic explanation on the basis of a theory of human nature. Each
conception of human nature is a belief, which relates to the conventions of particular
societies. What is primary though is ourunderstanding. As stated earlier, the human
agent, as such, has no ultimate nature. She is what in conduct she becomes. Human
intelligence creates its own world, but with the ideational materials and postulates of
conduct to hand. Convention, the intelligent use and assimilation of postulates and
imagination characterize human conduct.
Communitarianism
Most political theorists, in considering conventionalist argument, have generally not
tendedtoconsiderOakeshott’sthought, although, inreality, itisadeeplysophisticated
philosophical rendition of the conventionalist position. Most theorists, who have
been attracted by conventionalist argument, over the last two to three decades, have
focused their attention on the more general communitarian perspective. This latter
perspective has had a relatively brief, if loud, exposure during the 1980s and 1990s.
In many ways, it has now become somewhat more dissipated and hackneyed in the
early 2000s. However, communitarianism is still useful, in that it focuses attention,
quite precisely, on some of the bare bones of current conventionalist arguments.