Edmund Burke's 'Moral Imagination' and the problem of political order

This study examines the role and meaning of the moral imagination in the political thought of Edmund Burke. This term probably originated with Burke; here, it is used to refer to a set of ethical and epistemological ideas central to his thought. A new understanding of Burke is offered which helps to resolve problems raised by conventional interpretations of him. Burke's moral-imaginative approach to politics and ethics offers important insights into the problem of identifying and maintaining sources of order and meaning within modern liberal democracy. This approach is explicated through the examination of a broad range of his writings and speeches. These include early writings on the theater and on the Sublime and Beautiful, and later political writings, including those on the French Revolution, India, Ireland, America, and Parliamentary reform.; Burke develops a critique of Enlightenment rationalism which in some ways anticipates postmodernism, but which avoids the difficulties associated with contemporary rejections of foundationalism. Central to Burke is the problem of how we perceive the true and the good. For him, instrumental reason is only one component of judgment; another vital component is the imagination. The model which emerges is one in which the imagination creates meaningful wholes out of sensory data. Reason must operate within this imaginative framework; consequently judgment is profoundly influenced by it. Burke is not a simple political conservative, but he does wish to conserve those cultural elements which help constitute the “wardrobe of a moral imagination.” Wholesale rejection of old prejudices, customs, traditions, religion, etc. causes a loss of meaning and a loss of standards needed to constrain the will; the result is arbitrariness and the collapse of liberal society.; In this study a broad consistency emerges among Burke's political positions, and between his aesthetics and his ethical-political thought. As in “natural law” interpretations of Burke, he is understood here to recognize a universal order. But, Burke is shown to understand the universal to be perceived through the imagination, not “reason.” The true and the good are in practice.