Naturalist Theory
Naturalists assume that reality, at least as far as they can know it, consists only of phenomena. “Reality is coextensive with the empirical world... No intelligible essences or other forms of nonempirical reality lie beyond or behind this world to lend it being and significance.” (William T. Blume, Theories of the Political System, p. 17) Naturalism is not materialism though. Materialism postulates that the physical world and movement are all that exists.
Naturalism does accept the reality of ideas, but places them as only part of the empirical world. Naturalists believe that universe requires no supernatural cause, or supernatural government. The world is self-operating, self-directing, and self-explanatory. The spiritual, mental, and physical aspects of man, who is only an incidental outcome of nature, are also an explainable product of nature. Values are justified on natural grounds. Ultimate values have no meaning other than as the objects of the strongest human passions. Reason orders and balances our passions so as to prevent mutual frustration, no more. Rules are only precepts of reason for efficient behavior. The naturalist society, organized by reason, is made up of people who efficiently maximize their values, in contrast to the strict empirical order that is rife with frustration.The naturalist school did not begin with the “death of God” after World War One, or with the rise of modern science and relativism (although these events have created a larger chasm for the noumenalist leap of faith). Some of the prominent naturalists include Thucydides, Weber, Nietzsche, Harrington, Riker, and Downs.
Thucydides, writing in Athens in 400 BC, believed man mechanically determined causes and effects. Many of his ideas were the result of the Sophist’s skepticism. The Sophists traveled extensively for their time and saw many different cultures and noumenalistic ideas. Astronomy, medicine, and the disintegration of Greek society added to their skepticism. Thucydides’ skepticism relegated to man three main impulses: security (safety), honor (glory), and wealth (gain of profit), but felt reason could dominate these impulses. In Athens during his writing, reason did not over come these impulses and society began to decay. Thucydides’ conclusion: democracy can produce greatness, as with Athens, but without reason to overcome impulses, democracy can only survive in the absence of a threat.
Max Weber, like Thucydides, assumed the unit of analysis was the individual. One could understand his own values through introspect. To understand the values of others, look at what they thought and what they did. He felt there was a “good” and “bad,” but their origin was of personal development. Weber disagreed with Marx, that we are not driven by history and that dialectical materialism was narrow and simplistic. Weber felt that through education people could learn to make wise choices that would lead to a “good” society. He saw three levels of motivation in man. The “least rational” includes motivation due to traditional conduct that was unreflective and habitual. The “less rational” motivation includes behaviors that are affectual, religious, or sentimental. The “rational” motivation is the product of enlightened self-interest (i.e. higher interest than just self). Weber also warns against the potential alienation dangers to the individual of modern capitalism and bureaucracy. Once institutionalization sets in, specialization limits individual choice.
Friedrich Nietzsche is the iconoclast of what he sees as the crushing conformity of the masses. He attacks traditional Christianity, materialist liberalism and socialism. Nietzsche is the ultimate supporter of elitism with his “over-man” theory and in an indirect way warns liberal societies of this danger. His work even becomes apocalyptic with the rise of Nazi Germany. Nietzschean philosophy, therefore, poses a pivotal dilemma for naturalism. When noumenalist ideas of the divine origin of values is rejected, two choices arise. One is to accept hedonic drives as the basis of values (as pure naturalists do). The other possibility, in craving for something “higher,’ but refusing to give up naturalistic assumptions, is to consider will, ego, and creative imagination. The naturalist cannot answer, with certitude, whose will, whose ego, whose imagination. He cannot prove that the liberal society of Rousseau is a better Nietzschean than Hitler’s Germany, because reason has been thrown out in favor of will, ego, and imagination.
James Harrington’s notions center around the concept of “interest.” In The Commonwealth of Oceana, Harrington explains that there is a high degree of factions in society and that these factions can be balanced so that a republican government can be formed. Holding strictly to naturalist assumptions, Harrington feels that a balance could be constructed through institutions based on class and property. He also called for free elections by secret ballot to guarantee executive responsibility. Harrington, in other words, established a system in which the hedonistic drives of man would produce countervailing forces toward a unified end.
Anthony Downs and William H. Riker are contemporary naturalists who both assume the rationality of man. The polity in which both men theorize is democracy. The rational end for Downs is power, defined as control over public policy. Therefore, the motive behind political activity is power. The primary axiom that follows is that democratic governments act rationally to maximize political support. Political parties create rational policies to maximize votes. Every citizen rationally attempts to maximize his utility income. 
Riker centers his attention on the construction of coalition building among decision-makers. He asserts that few decisions are made by individuals, but that important political decisions are conscious acts, not a bureaucratic process. His primary proposition is that in zero-sum coalition building situations, only minimum winning collations occur, so that less compromise will take place. If a group knows how to win an issue, they will aim for a minimum number of coalitions. As uncertainty increases, so will the minimum number of coalition subgroups.Next I will touch briefly on the bridge builders—those that straddle the chasm between the noumenalists and the naturalists.
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