Conservatism
Ideology · 18th century onward, Britain and continental Europe · Politics, stage 2: Map the ideologies
Conservatism, in the line running from Edmund Burke, treats a society as an inheritance rather than a design. Its advocates argue that institutions, customs and moral habits carry accumulated practical knowledge that no individual reasoner could reconstruct from scratch, that human judgement is fallible and large reforms therefore risky, and that change should be gradual and grafted onto what exists rather than imposed from a plan. Conservatism is a disposition toward change more than a fixed programme, so its content varies with what there is to conserve: what counts as conservative in one country and century may be liberal or radical in another. Critics argue that a presumption in favour of existing arrangements protects existing injustice, that appeals to tradition select from the past selectively, and that the position offers little guidance once an inheritance has already been broken.
What it claims
- Inherited institutions embody practical knowledge that is easy to destroy and hard to rebuild.
- Human reason is limited, so wholesale redesign of a society tends to produce unintended harm.
- Change should be incremental and continuous with what already exists.
- People are formed by particular communities and loyalties, not by abstract principles alone.
Key ideas
People
Sources
- Conservatism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Edmund Burke Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Conservatism Wikipedia
