“A-political Conservatism”:

A Shared Uniqueness in the Thought of Takamaro Hanzawa and Michael Oakeshott

Abstract

The object of this paper is to consider a unique conservative political thought in the thought of Takamaro Hanzawa, Japanese historian of western political thought, and Michael Oakeshott, English political philosopher. It is unique because Montaigne, Pascal, and Hobbes, which are not considered as conservatism at all, are regarded as the very type of conservative political thinkers. They are considered conservatism from the following two grounds. One of them is answered by the concept of “sceptical conservatism” that Hanzawa proposed in originally classifying conservatism in the western history of political thought. Sceptical conservatism is a conservatism whose important feature is the radical doubt of justice to judge the correctness of political order, and its important implication is not to actively maintain “tradition” as the foundation of political order, instead, maintaining it only passively, and in some cases even subjecting “tradition” to scepticism. The other reason is that based on the “a-politicalist” idea that “politics” has only a secondary importance for human beings and that ultimate relief is sought for “a-political” territory. It becomes clear by analyzing the Oakshott’s reading of Hobbes which examines how mortality and salvation issues relate to the worldly order.