Response to ‘What Conservatives Value’
| Author | Dean Blackburn |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211062031 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211062031
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(3) 452 –455
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299211062031
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Response to ‘What
Conservatives Value’
Dean Blackburn
Abstract
This article responds to O’Hara’s ‘What Conservatives Value’. It establishes what is at stake in
our debate about the adjectival nature of conservatism, and it explores the role that risk plays in
conservative thinking.
Keywords
conservatism, social democracy, ideology, Oakeshott
Accepted: 4 November 2021
I want to begin by thanking Dr O’Hara for reading my work so carefully and for provid-
ing such provocative reflections on it. His ideas have greatly enriched our understanding
of conservatism, and it has been a privilege to exchange thoughts on the subject. In my
response, I will devote particular attention to two issues that we have both considered: the
‘adjectival’ quality of conservatism and the way in which conservatives think about risk.
Conservatism, as O’Hara rightly suggests, is situational; it defines itself in relation to
what it is not. The conservative identifies forces of change and resists them on the grounds
that they will disturb arrangements that are of value. Inevitably, the nature of those forces
will be different in different societies, so we cannot expect conservatives to hold the same
beliefs in all contexts. But as I have argued, this feature of conservatism does present a
problem for the conservative. How can they make judgements about the necessity of
change without having some values that they are committed to? Surely they need to be
able to assess the value of the status quo in order to determine whether it is worth conserv-
ing? Importantly, these values have no necessary relationship with the kinds of arguments
(‘cp + kp’) that are distinctly conservative. This is perhaps where O’Hara and I part com-
pany. In O’Hara’s view, the ‘cp + kp’ formula is a kind of over-arching disposition that
serves as a starting point for conservative thinking. My view, by contrast, is that such
conservative arguments are ‘empty’ until they are brought into a dialogue with values and
beliefs that have no relationship with conservatism. In turn, I argue that the latter are the
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Corresponding author:
Dean Blackburn, Humanities, University Park, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.
Email: dean.blackburn@nottingham.ac.uk
1062031PSW0010.1177/14789299211062031Political Studies ReviewBlackburn
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