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Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) was born in Dublin, Ireland, to a Catholic mother and Protestant father. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, and briefly studying law in London, Burke entered the British Parliament in 1756, where he served for several decades among the Rockingham branch of the Whig party.

Burke’s purely philosophical writings range from A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), widely read at the time as a defense of anarchism, to his treatment of aesthetics in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). Although Burke’s philosophical writings are worthy accomplishments, he is best remembered for his political speeches and writings in which he synthesized abstract questions of political philosophy with the details and exigencies of practical politics.

On the basis of his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke is widely considered to be the founder of Anglo-American conservatism. Even before the French Revolution (1789–1799) had devolved into the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), Burke indicted the zeal of the French revolutionaries and accurately predicted some of the revolution’s later excesses. He objected to the French Revolution’s irreligious character, its invocation of metaphysical doctrines of natural rights, and its hostility to custom or tradition. Reflections strikes many readers as antidemocratic, as Burke not only complains about the leveling and disordering effects of the French Revolution but also defends aristocratic values such as chivalry, honor, and duty.

The conservative dimensions to Burke’s Reflections have tended to overshadow his advocacy of other patently liberal causes. Burke defended a policy of conciliation toward the American colonies. Because the colonies had evolved a national identity distinct from Britain, it would be wrong to resist their efforts to separate themselves and pursue liberty in their own way. Likewise, Burke felt considerable sympathy for his native Ireland and argued for toleration of Irish Catholics. Burke led the impeachment of Warren Hastings, director of the British East India Company, whose maladministration and abuses of power threatened the lives and liberties of Britain’s Indian subjects. In the case of the French Revolution, Burke defended himself against charges of inconsistency in his 1791 “Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs,” identifying a consistent emphasis on the value of liberty running throughout all of his major speeches and writings.

Burke’s “Speech to the Electors of Bristol” (1774) outlines what has come to be known as the Burkean theory of political representation. For Burke, the duty of a good representative is not just to mirror the interests and desires of constituents but to make disinterested decisions about the public good.

Mostly neglected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Burke was rediscovered by American political theorists during the cold war. American conservatives like Russell Kirk rehabilitated Burke as a natural law thinker to anchor their defense of traditional American values against the irreligion and immorality of communist totalitarianism. More recently, however, Burke’s liberal face has reemerged as many postcolonial political theorists have taken a fresh look at his criticism of the conduct of British imperialism in India.

Bibliography:

Burke, Edmund. Selected Letters of Edmund Burke, edited by Harvey Mansfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Reflections on the Revolution in France, edited by J. G. A. Pocock. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
Pre-revolutionary Writings, edited by Ian Harris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Canavan, Francis P. The Political Reason of Edmund Burke. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1960.
Mansfield, Harvey C. Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
O’Brien, Conor Cruise. The Great Melody. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.