GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OF DEMOCRACY 781
climatic moment, whether clothes are worn or whether
they are not. There is nothing intrinsically disgraceful
about the human body, as is shown by the various areas of
it which different civilizations have thought proper to
expose to the public gaze. But if a particular community
holds that a particular area of the body ought to be covered,
it cannot, it may be said, permit individuals to outrage the
prevailing sense of "decency" by asserting their right
to walk about the street naked. In those spheres, then,
in which uniformity is important, some person or body
must be charged with the function of maintaining it.
To insist that the most appropriate body for the purpose
is the State, is not to concede the claim of idealist theory'
that the State has the right to prescribe the good life
for the individual. It is only to recognize in another con-
nection the need to maintain that minimum background
of accepted behaviour by all, which is the indispensable
condition of the living of the good life by any, and to
point to the State as the most appropriate body for fulfilling
that need.
Democratic Theory of the State. It would seem, then,
that the function which democratic theory is prepared to
to the State is a back-
recognize as belonging of necessity
ground function. The State should not prescribe men's
business and economic activities, and it should not presume
to tell them bow they should live. It should, however, be
prepared to step in to check the adverse effects of men's
industrial and economic activities upon other citizens, and
it should make it its business to establish the conditions
in which a man can choose for himself his way of life,
and then live consonantly with his choice. The relegation
of the State to what is in essence a background position
does not mean that it will not be continuously engaged in
positive action. In its r61e of checker and modifier of the
blind effects ofeconomic action, the State will be committed,
as we have seen, to social legislation to protect the workers
from economic exploitation.