“I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction, is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” — Thomas Jefferson writing to Francis Hopkinson, 3/13/1789.
With partisanship being the order of the day in today’s political arena, a few minutes of reflection on the above quotation by one of America’s pre-eminent political philosophers seems appropriate. For Jefferson, as he so clearly states, partisanship was not just a political issue, but a moral one. Today this may not seem as self-evident as it did to Jefferson 212 years ago, especially given the complex nature of politics and modern life in general. In fact, identifying with a party can be beneficial in many ways; it helps one express core values, it connects one to others and helps one feel be part of a community of like-minded individuals, and for the more practical reason of getting politically difficult things done. By identifying with a party one is staking a claim in the political landscape, which in turn helps one construct a political identity of one’s own; by banding together to get difficult political actions done we are shaping our nation. To argue that these functions of partisanship are degrading to a free and moral agent seems to be overstating the case against partisanship. But for Jefferson it is not the mere act of identifying with a party that has moral consequences, rather it is the act of uncritically accepting a political dogma that is morally degrading, an act that often goes hand-in-hand with party identification; I think he is right.
In a democratic or republican system where the people are entrusted with helping shape the face of the nation through acts of political decision making, one has a responsibility to be an engaged and informed citizen. Responsibilities place a level of moral obligation on a free and moral agent; when one shirks a responsibility one is making a moral decision to not fulfill one’s obligations. By accepting a political dogma blindly one is not acting as an informed citizen. Therefore, when one accepts a political dogma blindly, one is shirking one’s responsibility to be an informed citizen, and in doing so one fails to fulfill one’s moral obligations as a participant in a democratic or republican society.
However, there are those who would argue that responsibility and moral obligation are not necessary nor sufficient determinants of an act’s moral value; rather moral value is a result of the consequences of one’s actions. Even here I think Jefferson’s claim stands. One of the mains acts of citizenship in a democratic or republican nation is the election of public officials. These public officials then act as the people’s delegates who directly from public policy. Those who accept a political dogma uncritically are very likely to vote for a public official based solely on party affiliation, and not from a standpoint of an informed citizen that has carefully weighed the candidate’s positions. If enough people vote in this manner, ideologues get elected; these ideologues are harmful to a democratic nation for their votes more often reflect their ideologies rather than the general public interest (for instance the election of Don McElroy DDS, whose ideology has seriously changed the way social studies will be taught to many American schoolchildren for the next decade, is a prime example). Therefore, when one uncritically accepts a political dogma, serious negative consequences for the public good may occur as a result of that choice. If consequences reflect moral value and uncritically accepting the party line results in negative political consequences then uncritically accepting the party line has negative moral value.
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