A Guide to Edmund Burke’s Life and Philosophy

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) was an Irish-born philosopher, economist, and political thinker. His published works inspired political thought and debate within his own lifetime, particularly Reflections on the Revolution in France and A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.

Burke's own political life was rooted in London, where he served as a member of the House of Commons. He belonged to the Whig Party, which was considered comparatively left-wing among Great Britain's political parties at the time. However, Burke's advocacy for the institutions of church and family, plus his skepticism toward taxation and the French Revolution, have led some political thinkers to deem him the father of modern conservatism.

Although remembered for his time in British government, Edmund Burke was raised and schooled in Ireland. It was not until 1750, when he moved to London, that Burke fully embarked on his life as a philosopher and political thinker.

• Youth in Ireland: Edmund Burke was born in the Irish capital of Dublin in 1729. Although his mother was a Roman Catholic, Burke was raised as an Anglican like his father. Burke studied at a Quaker school before matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin, which only conferred degrees to Protestants.
• A move to England and intellectual inquiries: Burke relocated to London in 1750, although shortly thereafter, he embarked on extensive travels through continental Europe. During the 1750s, Burke published some of his most purely philosophical writings, including the satirical A Vindication of Natural Society (1756) and the contemplative A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). In 1758, he co-founded the Annual Register, which endures as a historical account of the prior year's events and notable publications and developments.
• An entry into politics: In the first half of the 1760s, Burke served as a private secretary to multiple politicians. The first was William Gerard Hamilton, who had been appointed Westminster Abbey's Chief Secretary for Ireland. The second was British Prime Minister Charles, Marquess of Rockingham.
• Member of Parliament: Burke personally entered public office in 1765, when he joined the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig Party. Over nearly three decades, Burke would represent Wendover, Bristol, and Malton in Westminster Abbey. Burke's first speech to Parliament gained him immediate notice. William Pitt the Elder, who would soon become prime minister, remarked that Burke's speech was delivered "in such a manner as to stop the mouths of all Europe." The Whigs were known in their time as a comparatively left-wing party, but Burke would steer it rightward, particularly as the leader of a faction he called the Old Whigs.
• Political writings: By the late 1760s, Burke's writings had turned squarely toward politics. His pamphlet, Observations on a Late State of the Nation, served as a retort to The Present State of the Nation, a pamphlet penned by fellow Whig George Grenville. In 1760, Burke published Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, where he warned against unfettered powers of a British monarch and advocated for political parties as a check on royal power. Burke would go on to side with the American colonies in their grievances against English King George III (his pamphlet, On American Taxation, outlined his sympathies), but he drew the line at the American Revolution, believing America should remain within the British Empire.
• Impeachment of Warren Hastings: In the early-to-mid-1780s, Burke led an impeachment campaign against Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal in colonial India. Burke resented the British East India Company's treatment of the Indian people and saw Hastings as the company's enabler. Burke eventually convinced the House of Commons to impeach Hastings, but the House of Lords acquitted him on all charges.
• Opposing the French Revolution: Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in late 1790, took a dim view of a bourgeoisie uprising in France. Burke's view was that Enlightenment philosophers and revolutionaries had over-inflated the supposed metaphysical rights of humans, and that in the natural world, humans gravitated toward those in power and accepted their authority. In doing so, Burke argued against the French Revolution, which dented his political career. His evolving political philosophy led to a rebuke from his contemporaries via pamphlets such as The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine and A Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Wollstonecraft.
• A break with some Whigs: Burke's controversial opposition to the French Revolution caused a schism between himself and certain British Whigs—most notably Charles James Fox. In his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Burke warned against the British Left allying with the French revolutionaries. His personal party faction, which he called the Old Whigs, largely aligned themselves with Tory prime minister William Pitt the Younger instead of Fox. In 1793, Great Britain and Revolutionary France declared war on one another, which Burke supported.
• Final writings and death: When Pitt's government began negotiating a peace treaty with Revolutionary France in 1796, Burke published Letters on a Regicide Peace, where he accused the new French leaders of suppressing individual will. This would be a template for future descriptions of totalitarianism. He felt that any embrace of French revolutionary principles could spell doom for the (unwritten) British Constitution. Burke died in 1797 before the French Revolution had run its course. His vehement opposition to it characterized his final years.

Although Burke spent his political life in the British Whig Party, he is remembered today as a father of modern conservatism. This owes to his strong belief in the institutions of family and religion, his skepticism toward taxation, and his strong disapproval of the bourgeoisie French Revolution. Burke's philosophy can be discerned from his major works.

1. 1. A Vindication of Natural Society (1756): This early Burke work is regarded as a Swiftian satire of deism, or the idea that a supreme being exists but does not interfere with mankind. This philosophical theory prevailed among educated elites during the eighteenth century.
   
2. 2. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757): This work was a foray into pure philosophy, in which Burke explored causal structures for the things humans deem beautiful and the things they deem sublime. Burke equated beauty with aesthetics and the sublime with compulsive power.
3. 3. On American Taxation (1774): Burke sided with American colonists in their protest against British tax laws like the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. He articulates this point of view in this pamphlet, but he did believe the British Parliament possessed the right to tax colonists if absolutely necessary for preserving the British empire.
4. 4. Conciliation with America (1775): Despite his reservations about taxing American colonists, Burke did not support American independence. Conciliation with America (also called Conciliation with the Colonies) offered proposals to appease American wishes but also keep the colonies within the British empire.
5. 5. Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790): This pamphlet articulates Burke's misgivings about the French Revolution and has served as a template for modern conservative thought. He rejected revolutionaries' claim of metaphysical human rights, arguing instead that it was the natural social order of humans to gravitate toward hierarchies.
6. 6. Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795–97): This series of letters, composed at the end of Burke's life, warned British politicians against signing a peace treaty with Revolutionary France. The revolution ended not long after Burke's death, and France would fall under the rule of Napoleon.

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