Dear friends,
I have followed this debate with great interest, and since I was asked to share my view on this, I gladly do so. Please excuse before, that my philosophical and political English is not as nuanced as I could explain myself in German, by far.
Now when I go to the question of the morality of Monarchy, I can not help but to go back to the question, what is good? And behind that lies the question, what even is human nature? For I think without having any clarity or at least direction in these questions, I feel unable to answer the first question, how morally right is Monarchy?
I myself have written several times that humans are beings full of contradictions. We desire to be free and individual AND at the same times we desire to belong to something greater, the group, a collective. We want many opposing things, so I do not think any society should be build on one single highest ideal, like either individualism or collectivism, but as a selection of values. As such, I can only see a society that succeeds being based on how human nature truly is, for if we violate human nature we put our society on the course of failure. Humans want at the same time be masters of their lives, they generally dislike being told what to do, but also do not want to look into every political affair all the time. That for me rules out any extreme model of society like anarchic libertarian or a strong dictatorship, because in the anarchy people would be overwhelmed making way too many decisions all the time by themselves, whereas in any authoritarian rule people would feel that too many decisions are forced upon them.
Hence I follow usually the Aristotelian school of balance between the extremes. The second thought is, that I still regard by and large the model of the Roman Republic as the ideal state, in the same way as Polybios wrote, it being a balance between Democracy, Aristocracy and Monarchy. Let me explain.
The greatest benefit of democracy is, besides the freedom of speech, that fact that it puts more responsibilities on the people. If all decisions are made only by a select few, the masses have no responsibilities whatsoever, and that seems not a goal for humanity I find worthy. Now sure, one can say, the masses are uneducated and brute, and this may be so. But like a child grows gradually with the duties given to them, so I am sure at least to a degree, the masses can learn, when responsibilities are given to them. Though I am convinced our system of political parties is most inferior in doing so, but that is more then the question how we organize the democratic element; but for these reasons, I would by all means have a democratic element in a society. Its absence would create a continually growing dissatisfaction of many people, esp. in our information age, where, unlike in past ages, most people can read and write and thus are part of a net of communication anyway. So their natural desire will be to have a voice.
Now of course we know the masses lacking time and usually education are often not so well in knowing what is the best, and for that we also need a class dedicated both intellectually and by a higher standard of ethics as “experts” in the broadest sense. Patricians, Nobles. I tend to lean at least a bit to the Platonic/Socratic idea of the Guardian Class or however you would name it, who are both highly educated and raised with a specific sense of ethicality. I would not want to given them THAT much power as Plato would, but I would surely add them to society as one of three elements, similarly to the Patricians of the Roman Republic.
Now I have a bit eluded the question, what place has monarchy? I judge the moral validity as Pragmatist mostly from the result, what sort of results would a monarchy cause? Now the aim of a society can, as I think similarly like Socrates, only be the Common Good. Like the doctor heals the people for them, or the Captain sails the ship where the passengers want to go, so it seems clear to me, that the aim of any government must be the good of the people, the Res Publica, not his own personal good. One can say, a Monarch, being free of any influence would be above the small bickering of factions, but the reality of Monarchy has hardly ever been like it. Of course the benefit of a good monarch is, that he can do much good without the hindrance of the bureaucracy and the various factions in a society. But how does he know what is good? How can we hope a monarch is so wise? Is it not more likely to expect that a group of people debating and critizising each other will find a way that is both morally good and for the benefit of the Res Publica, than a single being, who has no equal against whom he must prove his ideas? So I tend to favor the Roman concept of the two Consuls, who are almost like monarchs, but they are elected, for a brief time, without having the office too long and they are two, with the chance to balance each other out; whereas a single being, as the general passion of humans goes, might be too tempted by his power to fall into hubris. Soon he will find himself infallible and look at other people as mere tools and chess pieces of his whim, as, again, history has shown often enough.
So my view is, so far, that Monarchy seems immoral to me; not because of some a priori reasons, but because of the results; the design of a rule of a single person would always go bad due to human nature, having no checks and balances, such an individual without any equal and counterpart tends to develop the worst human characteristics.
I have always, I would like to add, seen Cicero as my role model, standing for the Roman Republic, even though at times he doubted it would work anymore under the current circumstances. I can understand the need for a leading figure and even more a leading caste, but not unchecked, only rooted in the Republican democracy of elections, debates and free speech. That seems to me a system that leads humanity upwards; even if at times it fails, I would still regard it so, that we must then try again better, than handing all power to a single individual. Above that I would be of the view, that the Human Rights are a basis I regard as some worthy standard for a society. However, I think it is prudent to add elements of Aristocracy and Monarchy to the Democratic element, because, as I have said, the masses are often uneducated and unruly, and often does not know well what is best for the common good. I would, as a rule, establish systems which encourage the good, rather than forbid what is bad, like creating Art and Entertainment that is not nihilistic or dragging people down, but Art and Entertainment that inspires, lifts people up and sets up positive examples. I see it as less relevant whether these systems are set up by democratic people, by a group of nobles or a single person.