- Department of Political Science
University of Toronto
3030 Sidney Smith Hall
100 St. George St.
Toronto, ON M5S 3G3
CANADA - 310-710-0387 (cell)
Andrew Sabl
University of Toronto, Political Science, Faculty Member
- Leadership (Political Science), Enlightenment Political Thought, Liberalism, Democratic Theory, Ethics, Theory and Practice of Toleration, and 15 moreHistory Of Political Thought (Political Science), Legitimacy and Authority, David Hume, Political Science, Hume, Leadership, Political Ethics, Ethics and Politics, Non-Ideal Ethical Theory, Realism (Political Science), Liberalism and Toleration, Religious Toleration, Pierre Bayle, Economics, and Political Realismedit
- Andrew Sabl is a political theorist whose research focuses on political ethics; democratic and constitutional theory;... moreAndrew Sabl is a political theorist whose research focuses on political ethics; democratic and constitutional theory; theories of toleration and political pluralism, the political theory of David Hume, leadership and coordination, and most recently, the realist movement in political theory (from a liberal perspective).
Sabl's research combines a strong an abiding interest in the history of political thought with a constant engagement with contemporary theoretical and political questions. His first book attempts to discuss systematically, through both theory and biographical examples, the range of political action that takes place, and ought to take place, in a pluralistic, constitutional democracy such as the United States, and the range of character dispositions required in the leaders who facilitate each type of action. This theme of moral pluralism in politics ran throughout his early work. His second project, which read Hume’s History of England as political theory, continued the enterprise of exploring how political theory both shapes and is shaped by judgments of actual political decisions and actors. The book reads Hume's political thought as centrally about how conventions of authority arise, change, gain strength over time, and face periodic crises.
Sabl is currently finishing a project, under contract from Harvard University Press, tentatively titled "The Uses of Hypocrisy: An Essay on Toleration." Drawing on the history of political thought (especially Pierre Bayle's *Some Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet*) as well as contemporary social science and several contemporary examples, it argues that an awareness of the pervasiveness of human hypocrisy can make us more tolerant. Hypocrisy can be defined as a gap between people's professed beliefs and their actions. This is normally considered a bad thing, but can be a very good thing if people's beliefs are very bad or dangerous (a belief in the goodness of violence, terrorism, religious persecution, etc.). We can tolerate many more people, groups, and ideologies than we think we can once we realize how common and salutary it is for people to profess attachment to ideals and programs that they would never think of actually acting to further when doing so would incur personal costs.
Sabl's next book will be a realist theory of liberalism, one that focuses on the ability of diverse liberal institutions to satisfy a wide range of human interests rather than on the alleged necessity to seek (even thin) normative agreement and to demand that people justify their actions through a certain kind of reason.
Sabl received his Ph.D. in political science and a B.A. summa cum laude in government from Harvard University. He currently holds a long-term (2013-20) visiting appointment in Yale's Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics, and by courtesy in Political Science. Before that, he was an Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor at UCLA; taught at Vanderbilt University, and held visiting positions at Williams, Harvard, and Princeton. as well as a Harvard postdoctoral fellowship. His research credentials include an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship (2003-4) and the Leo Strauss Award of the American Political Science Association for Best Dissertation in Political Philosophy (1997). His books include Hume's Politics (Princeton, 2012); Ruling Passions: Political Offices and Democratic Ethics (Princeton, 2002), and many independent articles and book chapters including work appearing in Perspectives on Politics, Political Theory, the Journal of Political Philosophy, Polity, the American Journal of Political Science,, NOMOS, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, the Election Law Journal, and other publications.edit
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David Hume's History of England should be regarded as his most important work of political theory. Although most people (in Hume's time as now) get their main impressions of Hume's political positions from his... more
David Hume's History of England should be regarded as his most important work of political theory. Although most people (in Hume's time as now) get their main impressions of Hume's political positions from his Essays, the essays' accessibility comes at a price. In their ...
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585 democracy itself. It also contributes significantly to debates on the nature of non-domination, its political implications, and the place of human rights, including political freedoms and membership rights, in republican political... more
585 democracy itself. It also contributes significantly to debates on the nature of non-domination, its political implications, and the place of human rights, including political freedoms and membership rights, in republican political theory. This is a densely argued work on the need for, and possibility of, a democracy of many levels and kinds to overcome the problem of domination. Although the argument builds on Kantian and Habermasian foundations, it takes account of, and attempts to avoid, the shortcomings of these theoretical perspectives in a way that is successful on several fronts, although it does require the argument to become more complex. The argument that democracy cannot now be realized within a determinate community is compelling. The idea that non-domination requires us to think in terms of a political community of humanity, the addressee of justice claims by those who suffer domination, whether members of a more specific political community or none, is a radical and challenging one. While the focus is primarily on the foundations of and conditions for emergent global democratization, rather than on specific institutional design, which leaves many questions about more practical implications to be answered, this book provides an ambitious and radical theory of global democratization and of republicanism, and one that is so philosophically systematic that it must be engaged with by those working in either area.
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Realizing freedom as non-domination requires organizing the economy so that no individual has to sell discretionary control over their labor. This is the most radical and striking claim that Gourevitch recovers from labor republicanism.... more
Realizing freedom as non-domination requires organizing the economy so that no individual has to sell discretionary control over their labor. This is the most radical and striking claim that Gourevitch recovers from labor republicanism. Insofar as individuals have no direct access to productive assets, they will be forced to enter into a labor relationship that is, in its most significant features, objectionable in many of the same ways as slavery. Gourevitch further argues that this is so even where workers have achieved considerable collective bargaining power, legal protections, and capacity to change jobs, as the “labor contract, no matter how carefully regulated, cannot help but give employers the lion’s share of . . . residual, discretionary authority” (p. 177). As a historical study, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth succeeds splendidly, forcing an important revision of republican theory and opening up new avenues for historical exploration. In particular, Gourevit...
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This book provides a comprehensive examination of David Hume's political theory, and is the first book to focus on Hume's monumental History of England as the key to his distinctly political ideas. The book argues that conventions... more
This book provides a comprehensive examination of David Hume's political theory, and is the first book to focus on Hume's monumental History of England as the key to his distinctly political ideas. The book argues that conventions of authority are the main building blocks of Humean politics, and explores how the History addresses political change and disequilibrium through a dynamic treatment of coordination problems. Dynamic coordination, as employed in Hume's work, explains how conventions of political authority arise, change, adapt to new social and economic conditions, improve or decay, and die. The book shows how Humean constitutional conservatism need not hinder—and may in fact facilitate—change and improvement in economic, social, and cultural life. It also identifies how Humean liberalism can offer a systematic alternative to neo-Kantian approaches to politics and liberal theory. The book builds bridges between political theory and political science. It treats is...
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In Our Name: The Ethics of Democracy. By Eric Beerbohm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 368p. $45.00. - When the State Speaks, What Should It Say? How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality. By Corey Brettschneider. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 232p. ...more
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The introduction to *Political Ethics: A Handbook*, co-edited by Edward Hall and Andrew Sabl. Princeton University Press, 2022
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Russell Hardin’s theory of constitutions as conventions implies several conclusions that are striking, deep, important, counterintuitive, and very hard to deny. Nevertheless, they have had little influence on the field of political... more
Russell Hardin’s theory of constitutions as conventions implies several conclusions that are striking, deep, important, counterintuitive, and very hard to deny. Nevertheless, they have had little influence on the field of political theory. This chapter seeks to explain that through two theses. (1) The theory embarrasses the prevailing schools of political thought (participatory and/or deliberative democracy, “high” or rationalist liberalism, and Cambridge historicism) not just by denying their doctrines but by suggesting the irrelevance of many of their favorite questions. (2) The theory seems, as Hardin presents it, more pessimistic and quietist than it needs to be. This chapter suggests that the theory contains within it under-stressed resources that make room for constant institutional progress and political reform.
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One of the central virtues in a democracy is what might be called democratic sportsmanship: a willingness to lose gracefully and still keep playing. Nothing is more common, however, than for different political actors to see one another... more
One of the central virtues in a democracy is what might be called democratic sportsmanship: a willingness to lose gracefully and still keep playing. Nothing is more common, however, than for different political actors to see one another as bad sports. This essay explores, and distinguishes, three different reasons why conflict can occur. Players can disagree over how the game should best be played; over which game is being played; or over the degree to which settled rules are desirable in the first place. In the first case, arguments among players and spectators are more tractable than they seem, even salutary. In the second, they are less salutary but also less dangerous than commonly thought, due to modern polities' ability to mix games and to adopt side constraints independent of the rules of any particular game. The third case is more dangerous but also an occupational hazard only of leaders, who must be brought to appreciate the virtues of settled rules and institutionalize...
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Abstract Applying Humean empiricism to policy reform implies a “paradox of innovation.” All radical changes to human conventions, whether we eventually judge them beneficial or harmful, will be ex ante irrational: they initially lacked... more
Abstract Applying Humean empiricism to policy reform implies a “paradox of innovation.” All radical changes to human conventions, whether we eventually judge them beneficial or harmful, will be ex ante irrational: they initially lacked good evidence in their favor. Having set forth the paradox, this article treats some consequences. First, it argues that sound policy advice will be “supra-rational,” i.e. able to suggest one plausible convention without ruling out others, and relative to the state of both physical and political technology. Second, it analyzes “projectors” (disruptive policy entrepreneurs) as “zealots of means,” who seek not to achieve specified outcomes but to establish their preferred conventions. The article calls for making use of such zealots’ advice, as capable of yielding qualitative improvements in human welfare, while limiting their independent power and discretion. It glosses interest groups as zealots of means whose demands are less likely to be salutary. Third, after sharply criticizing the ethics of performing (ex ante) dangerous social experiments on the powerless, the paper nevertheless argues how we might usefully employ data from past instances of others' having performed them. Making a virtue of uncertainty, it advocates that each society's members learn from other democratic societies' apparently reckless innovations, since what seems reckless to one society's public may seem plausible and exciting to another's. The paper closes by stressing our rationality's necessary incompleteness.
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Abstract This paper proposes a realist version of liberal theory. Realist liberalism denies that societies must (or can) rest on even a thin normative consensus; disbelieves in regulative ideals; and decouples liberal politics and social... more
Abstract This paper proposes a realist version of liberal theory. Realist liberalism denies that societies must (or can) rest on even a thin normative consensus; disbelieves in regulative ideals; and decouples liberal politics and social critique from neo-Kantian projects of rational justification. Drawing inspiration from the Scottish rather than the German Enlightenment, it focuses instead on institutional divisions of labor, unintended consequences, and the furtherance of human interests that are partly common and partly clashing. It analyzes a variety of institutions and practices – including the rule of law, the market, the welfare state, competitive representative and partisan democracy, toleration, and free speech – that reveal themselves in practice to serve a wide and indefinite variety of human interests. Each of these and other liberal institutions enable a particular range of human purposes. And each may be subjected to normative critique to the extent that it excludes important sectors of society from its benefits, is unfairly rigged by powerful actors, or displays systematic and excessive bias with regard to the range of interests it promotes.
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Liberal democracy is often viewed by its supporters as a system of government that responds to the informed and rational preferences of the public organized as voters. And liberal democracy is often viewed by its critics as a system that... more
Liberal democracy is often viewed by its supporters as a system of government that responds to the informed and rational preferences of the public organized as voters. And liberal democracy is often viewed by its critics as a system that fails to respond to the informed and rational preferences of its citizens. In this book Larry Bartels and Chris Achen draw on decades of research to argue that a “realistic” conception of democracy cannot be centered on the idea of a “rational voter,” and that the ills of contemporary democracies, and especially democracy in the U.S., must be sought in the dynamics that link voters, political parties and public policy in ways that reproduce inequality. “We believe,” write the authors, “that abandoning the folk theory of democracy is a prerequisite to both greater intellectual clarity and real political change. Too many democratic reformers have squandered their energy on misguided or quixotic ideas.”
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Empirical political scientists and normative political theorists both seek to assess the quality of democracy. But they apply to this task very different criteria and assumptions. Empiricists (in particular those who study American... more
Empirical political scientists and normative political theorists both seek to assess the quality of democracy. But they apply to this task very different criteria and assumptions. Empiricists (in particular those who study American politics) often assume that a—perhapsthe—key indicator of democratic quality is responsiveness, the degree to which policy outcomes reflect public opinion. They often cite “democratic theory” as endorsing this criterion. Normative theorists, however, all but universally reject responsiveness, proposing instead very different criteria of democratic quality. I document a divide between two research cultures; trace some of its causes; and suggest some ways of overcoming it so that scholars on each side may benefit from the insights of the other. Empiricists, I argue, should acknowledge that the responsiveness criterion is neither value-neutral nor, in its pure form, particularly persuasive. Theorists adduce other criteria for sound and commonsensical reasons...
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As its title implies, this book is less about race, or democracy, than about what Lawrie Balfour sees as a lack of real discussion about race in America since the civil rights era. Balfour sees in James Baldwin's criticism a “moral... more
As its title implies, this book is less about race, or democracy, than about what Lawrie Balfour sees as a lack of real discussion about race in America since the civil rights era. Balfour sees in James Baldwin's criticism a “moral psychology of the color line” that explains the persistence of racial injustice and that should shatter our optimistic belief that such injustice “needs only to be exposed to right thinking in order to be overcome” (pp. 17, 135–36). The project could be called a genealogy of the American dilemma.
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Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices is often oversimplified, and its radicalism underplayed. Far from simply endorsing “putting cruelty first,” the work doubts that this is politically desirable (or even clearly possible). Its defense of... more
Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices is often oversimplified, and its radicalism underplayed. Far from simply endorsing “putting cruelty first,” the work doubts that this is politically desirable (or even clearly possible). Its defense of hypocrisy is subtler and more ambivalent than often thought. Its attack on aristocratic, “primary” snobbery merits less attention than its defense of a pluralistic snobbery that allows each of us to find some group that may freely exclude, and look down on, (some) others. Its skepticism regarding accusations of betrayal relies less on direct political analysis than on a moral-psychological analysis of our need to attribute disloyalty to others. Its defense of the “liberalism of fear” stipulates the limits of such a liberalism and the necessity to join it with representative democracy. Finally, Shklar’s benign misanthropy leads her not only to endorse constitutional politics but also, and more fundamentally, to denigrate systematic political theory.
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In Our Name: The Ethics of Democracy. By Eric Beerbohm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 368p. $45.00.When the State Speaks, What Should It Say? How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality. By Corey Brettschneider. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 232p. $35.00more
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This paper asks the question of why Russell Hardin's view of constitutionalism, which treated constitutions as conventions that solved profound and pervasive coordination problems, never caught on in political theory. (In fact, it was... more
This paper asks the question of why Russell Hardin's view of constitutionalism, which treated constitutions as conventions that solved profound and pervasive coordination problems, never caught on in political theory. (In fact, it was largely ignored, not even regarded as requiring refutation.) One set of answers involves the ways in which Hardin's thought embarrasses prevailing schools of democratic, liberal, and historical political theory by addressing the problems they focus on while dismissing the premises and preoccupations that each school regards as necessary. A second involves the actual weaknesses of—or at least natural and unfortunate implications often drawn from—Hardin's theory itself. That theory appears more conservative, pessimistic, and quietist than it need be. I argue that various constitutional technologies, not emphasized by Hardin, allow constitutional regimes to combine the stability and nonviolence that Hardin rightly prized with the capacity for social change and transformation that his critics rightly think necessary.
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This chapter discusses a special case of compromise that arises when a failure to compromise stands to result in palpable, irreversible harm to the public as a whole or a particular group. I argue that attending to such harms illuminates... more
This chapter discusses a special case of compromise that arises when a failure to compromise stands to result in palpable, irreversible harm to the public as a whole or a particular group. I argue that attending to such harms illuminates both the causes and justification of certain compromises much better than accounts of compromise that focus on political actors' virtues or the promotion of desirable values. I illustrate this through several cases. I conclude by arguing that my account makes sense of the common claim that the alternative to compromise is (often, not always) violence, and by speculating on why this account, while true, has predictably failed to appeal to most political theorists and most who studied compromise (briefly: it's deflating, focusing not on moral and political aspirations but on catastrophes that need averting).
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This chapter discusses a special case of compromise that arises when a failure to compromise stands to result in palpable, irreversible harm to the public as a whole or a particular group. I argue that attending to such harms illuminates... more
This chapter discusses a special case of compromise that arises when a failure to compromise stands to result in palpable, irreversible harm to the public as a whole or a particular group. I argue that attending to such harms illuminates both the causes and justification of certain compromises much better than accounts of compromise that focus on political actors' virtues or the promotion of desirable values. I illustrate this through several cases. I conclude by arguing that my account makes sense of the common claim that the alternative to compromise is (often, not always) violence, and by speculating on why this account, while true, has predictably failed to appeal to most political theorists and most who studied compromise (briefly: it's deflating, focusing not on moral and political aspirations but on catastrophes that need averting).
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George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist and journalist. His importance to political theorists lies in his analysis of totalitarianism and the success of his writing against it, especially in his novels Animal Farm... more
George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist and journalist. His importance to political theorists lies in his analysis of totalitarianism and the success of his writing against it, especially in his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four; in his preaching and practice of a kind of political writing that rendered lazy ignorance of political evil more difficult; and in his heroic, never quite successful attempt to reconcile liberalism and individualism in literary life with a republican ideal of political virtue and solidarity.Keywords:communism;fascism;liberalism;republicanism;totalitarianismcommunism;fascism;liberalism;republicanism;totalitarianism
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Empirical political scientists and normative political theorists both seek to assess the quality of democracy. But they apply to this task very different criteria and assumptions. Empiricists (in particular those who study American... more
Empirical political scientists and normative political theorists both seek to assess the quality of democracy. But they apply to this task very different criteria and assumptions. Empiricists (in particular those who study American politics) often assume that a—perhaps the—key indicator of democratic quality is responsiveness, the degree to which policy outcomes reflect public opinion. They often cite " democratic theory " as endorsing this criterion. Normative theorists, however, all but universally reject responsiveness, proposing instead very different criteria of democratic quality. I document a divide between two research cultures; trace some of its causes; and suggest some ways of overcoming it so that scholars on each side may benefit from the insights of the other. Empiricists, I argue, should acknowledge that the responsiveness criterion is neither value-neutral nor, in its pure form, particularly persuasive. Theorists adduce other criteria for sound and commonsensical reasons. In particular, to the extent that empiricists find that policy outcomes reflect not median voter preferences but either random factors or the concerns of the wealthy and organized, they would render their findings more compelling by presenting them as troubling according to a variety of persuasive democratic theories, not just a stylized theory that posits pure responsiveness as its ideal. Normative theorists, I argue, may learn from empiricists greater respect for ordinary citizens' existing opinions, however imperfect the social and political circumstances in which they originate. and greater concern regarding empirical evidence that the median voter's opinions may have little independent effect on policy. In spite of all this, the two cultures remain properly distinct in many respects. Some substantial differences in approach reflect a necessary, permanent, and salutary division of labor between two very different modes of studying democracy and assessing its quality.
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This paper proposes using the concept of strategy to explore how liberal proponents of the "realist" school of political theory might apply their insights to understanding and evaluating discrete political actions.
Discusses David Hume's treatment of the ancient Athenian *graphê paranomôn* (indictment of illegality). Hume wonders why the Athenians allowed this practice given that it apparently limited the authority of the people. He argues (I claim)... more
Discusses David Hume's treatment of the ancient Athenian *graphê paranomôn* (indictment of illegality). Hume wonders why the Athenians allowed this practice given that it apparently limited the authority of the people. He argues (I claim) that it represented a kind of quasi-constitutionalism, a kludgy mechanism for checking popular excesses given the Athenians' distaste for formal, constitutional restrictions on democracy. On a closer reading, Hume also regards the *graphê* as a safeguard against corruption, especially by rich demagogues who might otherwise be effect departures from law with impunity.
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Starting in the 1990s, proponents of deliberative democracy have often contrasted their position with that of "aggregative" democrats. Yet this seems a straw man: no one has ever self-identified as an aggregative democrat, and many who... more
Starting in the 1990s, proponents of deliberative democracy have often contrasted their position with that of "aggregative" democrats. Yet this seems a straw man: no one has ever self-identified as an aggregative democrat, and many who are labeled such fail to believe what aggregative democrats are supposed to. On the other hand, many empirical political scientists who have written about interest aggregation adopt nuanced, sociologically sophisticated views that deliberative theorists have failed to discredit. This paper articulates three separate meanings of political aggregation, which it characterizes as troupe/team, alloy, and enumeration. It defends each as embodying attractive political values while also containing potential dangers. It then calls for seeing aggregative democracy in the largest sense, incorporating all three meanings, as the default position for democratic theory. Aggregative understandings of democracy, it argues, will be among the most fruitful ways of understanding and critiquing democratic institutions and practices moving forward.