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Book
The Republic
Justice
When each order (tradesman, Auxiliary, Guardian) keeps to its own proper business in the
commonwealth and does its own work, that is justice and what makes a just society.
Nature
Nature has determined which task everyone is made for, in which order everyone belongs.
Government
Plato is anti-democratic: he is in favour of the rule of the people who know over those who
not, regardless of the latter’s consent. It doesn’t matter to him whether there is monarchy or
aristocracy.
State
First city:
community based on division of labour, no rulers and guardians (“community of pigs”)
Second/ideal city:
1 philosophers/guardians (know the Truth and therefore should rule) wisdom-rational
2 auxiliaries (military virtue, should therefore be soldiers) courage-spirited
3 animals/producers/hand workers (desire food, sex, etc: biggest group) appetite-appetitive
Virtue
Guardians and auxiliaries no individual interests (property, love, family): austerity.
Extra
Man must approach everything with reason → hostility towards artists.
Distinction between the “public” and the “private”.
Education for the rulers and guardians only, not for all.
Women equal to men.
Truth is eternal (after training revelation to the vision of Goodness).
“Medicinal lie” makes ruling easier.
Plato
Justice as the interest of the stronger
Nothing enjoys the interest of the stronger party, but more the interest of the weaker.
Plato does not think that right means what is the interest of the stronger. People have
an opinion but this does not have to be just. Plato believes in a higher truth, which is
just. Because most people cannot attain this higher truth the strongest people’s
opinion is not just.
No one who practices a craft makes mistakes. A man is mistaken when his
knowledge fails him and at that moment he is no craftsman, but he is never mistaken
as long as he acts like one. So applying this to the ruler, the ruler in so far as he is
acting like a ruler makes no mistakes and consequently enjoins what is best for him;
and that is what the subject is to do.
Ruling as an art
Every art does not seek its own advantage because it has no deficiencies in itself.
The art seeks the interest of the subject on which it is exercised. And so with all kinds
of government: no ruler, in so far as he is acting like a ruler, will study or enjoin what
is for his own interest. All that he says and does will be said and done with the view
on what is good and proper for the subject for whom he practices his art, so his
ruling. No form of skill of authority provides for its own benefit. So a ruler never acts
for his own benefit but for the common good. A reason for people to accept power is
the fear of being ruled over by someone inferior to himself or herself.
Justice is produced in the soul like health in the body, by establishing the elements
concerned in their natural relations. Whereas injustice is like disease and means that
its natural order is inverted.
Equality of women
Different natures should have different occupations and so nature of men and women
are different. If one of the sexes especially qualified for any particular form of
occupation, this should be assigned to that sex.
We shall conclude that no difference between men and women had yet been
produced that is relevant to our purpose.
Natural gifts, such as management are to be found here and there in both creatures,
and every occupation is open to both, so far as their natures are concerned, though
the woman is for all purposes the weaker.
Men and women both can be guardians for which they should have the same
education. But still women are always the weaker sexes.
Either philosopher must become kings or the kings need to get a genuine desire for
wisdom. That means, political power and philosophy need to go together or the state
will never grow to its full stature.
In the world of knowledge the less thing to be perceived is the essential Form of
Goodness
This is the cause of whatever is right or good. It is in itself sovereign in the intelligible
world and the parent of intelligence and truth. Without having a vision of this form no
one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or as a guardian.
The soul of every man must possess the power of learning the truth and that, just as
one might have to turn the whole body round in order that the eye should see light
instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing
world, until its eye can bear to contemplate reality and that supreme splendour which
we have called the Good. (Think about the people in the cave that only saw the
shadows of people.)
Wisdom is certainly the virtue of some diviner faculty, which never loses its power,
though its use for good or bad depends on the direction towards which it is turned.
The law is not concerned to make any class especially happy, to ensure the welfare
of the commonwealth a whole. People should go their own way but they should be
instrumental in binding the community into one. The life of true philosophy is the only
one that looks down upon offices of the state; an access to power must be confined
to men who are not in love with power, otherwise rivals will start fighting.
First of all people are free. Liberty and free speech are rife everywhere; anyone is
allowed to do what he likes. The result will be a greater variety of individuals then
under any other constitution. In a democracy you must have seen how men
condemned to death or exile stay and go about in public, and no one takes any more
notice than he would over the spirit that walks invisible. There is so much tolerance
and superiority to petty considerations; such contempt for all those fine principles we
laid down in founding our commonwealth, as when we said that only very exceptional
nature could turn out a good man, if he had not played as a child among thin of
beauty and given himself only to creditable pursuits.
In some cases the democratic interest yields to the oligarchic: a sense of shame
gains a footing in the young mans soul, some appetites are crushed and other
banished, until order is restored.
Book
Ethics and Politics
Justice
Justice is the highest goal that the state tries to achieve.
Rule of law is preferred to any rule of men.
Nature
Nature is developing, not static. Distinction between form and matter: what you make is what
you are.
Government
Best government depends on circumstances, no “ideal” government (realistic).
Forms of true government (virtue): kingship, aristocracy, constitutional government
Forms of bad government (utility, pleasure): tyranny, oligarchy, democracy
Aristotle prefers kingship from the true forms and democracy from the bad forms.
State
Family (appetite, material) → village (social sentiment, social) → city-state (moral nature).
State is highest community of all. Organic conception of the state: it’s natural. The state has
parts and necessary conditions (low class, slaves): latter exists for the sake of the former.
Virtue
Citizens are virtuous and he who is virtuous should have the property. Therefore rulers, who
are citizens, should have property.
Slavery
Nature is ruled by contrast between superior and inferior. Slaves are inferior: they are a
possession. Slaves cannot act rational.
Extra
Private property is not a threat to moral perfection:
1 incentive and progress argument (more work means more property)
2 pleasure
3 liberality (possibility for generosity)
4 existed for long time (so must be good)
Aristotle
What is the role of the middle class according to Aristotle
According to the main principles of democracy, namely liberty, the majority must be supreme
as equality is defined as numerical not proportionate.
Gulden middenweg – not poor because they wil steel from the rich
Not the rich for they will disregard the needs of the poor – avoid extremes in order to create a
balance that must guarantee the stability and hence the continual existence of the state. – the
government and constitution must acquire the general willingness of all classes for law that is
disobeyed is no good government.
Aristotle intends to inquire into what is the best life for most men.
Does not assume 1) a standard of virtue which is above ordinary persons
2) an education which is highly favoured by nature and circumstances
3) an unattainable ideal state
An ideal state may be one wherein all people are equals and all are rich. In this state all men
would be good men and thus the state would beruled solely by god men and hence be the best
state. However this is not realistically attainable under the given circumstances. Therefor it
must be considered what is the best attainable state given the present conditions. Aristotle
states two main preconditions to which the state must comply. Firstly the state must have
regard to the life in which the majority is able to share. Secondly it must have regard to the
form of government that states in general can attain.
According to the Ethics the happy life is the lfie according to virtue. Virtue is a mean. Thus it
follows that life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by everyone, must be best.
All states have 3 classes
1) very rich
2) very poor
3) in a mean
moderation and the mean are best – fortune must be moderate, not disproportionate in order
for men to follow rational principle.
1) The first may be tempted by desire for ever more excessive wealth into tyranny and
oppression by means of violence, fully disregarding the needs and desires of the
oppressed.
a. They are neither able or willing to submit to authority as have been spoilt as
children they are not familiar with obedience. They can oly rule tyranically.
b. overambitious
2) The second, without means will develop into beggars and poor workers. Fully being
engaged in the struggle for survival they have no leisure, interest nor time to be occupied
with matters of the state. They are most likely to result to roguery.
a. They are too degraded
b. Having been raised as inferiors and slaves they know not how to rule or command
A state results of masters and slaves – one first despises the latter envies – friendship and
good fellowship are unattainable under these conditions. The state will consist of two classes
that are at war with each other. No stability or harmony. Like a body in which each individual
part wishes to act different than the other. As such the body can never act as a composite
whole and thus is not capable of functioning. In order for the body to function best under the
given circumstances it is indispensable that all individual parts cooperate through goodwill
not fear
A city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars.- middle classes –
1) subject to neither great envy of the rich nor repulsion of the poor.
2) They seek not to obtain their neighbours goods nor do others seek to obtain theirs.
Therefor they live safest.
3) It is preferable that the state be ruled by the majority. Therefor the middle class ought
to be larger and stronger than both or either of the other classes.
4) Neither of the extremes is dominant
5) Citizens have moderate yet sufficient property.
6) If property is divided disproportiantely an extreem form of government may come to
existence; poor – democracy, rich – oligarchy, tyranny.
7) Factions and dissensions must be avoided – parties oppose to one another which harms
stability
8) In a extreme form of government never all classes but one in particular is benefited.
Dissatisfaction is likely to arise. Dissatisfaction leads to dissensions and factions that
oppose the government. A revolution is then likely to arise.
9) In large states the middle class is larger – preferable to small states.
10) In democracies the middle class is larger and more influential than in oligarchies
where the majority consists of the oppressed and dissatisfied poor.
11) Both the extreme classes regard political supremacy as aa prize victory. They will seek
to benefit their own class and either disregard or oppress their enemy.
12) Most societies have a relatively small middle class. The state where the poor
predominate will evolve into a democracy whereas the state predominated by the rich
will evolve into an oligarchy.
Consider the situation where the state is ruled by either one of the two extremes. Thereafter I
will pay a closer look to the merits of the state ruled by the middle class.
Revolution –
Causes
1) desire of equality – inferiors
2) desire of inequality and superiority – equals
Politics
2 important strating points for his theory
1) the state is a community
2) The state is the highest of all communities, which embraces all the rest, aims at good
in a higher degree than another and at the highest good.
Polis: city state with a small area and a close knit and politically active population – no
distiction between socio economic and political institutions.
State is natural
1) Historical sense – The state is the natural and final stage in the growth of human
relations.
2) Logical, Philosophical sense – The state (the whole) is by nature prior to the family
and the individual (parts).
3) Man is by nature a political animal & city is indispensable for the existence of man.
All associations are political – all aim at a common good through joint action.
State – highest form of association - the highest good, namely the general advantage of all.
(non democratic ideal )
Arsitotle’s state exhibits moral sovereignty not legal sovereignty - (aims at the highest moral
purpose rather than suoreme authority.)
State is held together by personal bonds of fellowship, not by impersonal laws
Plato: - unity of the state is the highest ideal – until destruction
- sees only a few basic differences of individuals
Aristotle: warns against the dangers of excessive unity in the state
– would be the destruction of the state.
– Such unity is unattainable
- A state is made up of different kinds of men
- nature of a state is a plurality.
- Communal unity ought not to be stressed over inividual differences
- Individual ought not be subordinated to the state.
Aristotles view lies at the base of the concept of modern welfare states.
Single and exclusive domination of any one principle endangers the stability & practicabilty
of the state
- mixed constitution (e.g polity) is best
- mixed const. is only sustainable if backed by a stable society without extremes
of wealth and poverty.(equitable social & economic order)
Best state (polity) -equitable social & economic order – requires a slefless class
- not selfish rule by a wealthy plutocracy (oligarchy)
- or by a propertyless proletariat.(democracy)
Best political community – middle class
-best state - middle class is large and stronger than all other classes or either singly.
- provides the required balance and equilibrium.
Perverted polity
- democracy – rule of the poor for the poor (most tolerable perversion).
- Principles of democracy – incompatible with the stability of the existing moral
and political order. (equality is supreme ideal & freedom is unrestrained)
i. Popular sovereignty
ii. Individual liberty
Poverty – induces crime and revolution – evokes the disintegration of the state
Arsitotle has a conservative fear of the sovereignty of the majority
Citizenship – he who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration
of any state. – Aristotle exhibits a conservative view
- he who has citizenship – economically independent man, with enough experience,
education and leisure to devote himself to active citizenship.
- the ruling class should be the owners of property, for they are citizens – citizens of a
state should be in good circumstances.(the end)
- all others (e.g mechanics) are the necessary condition who provide the material
environment within which the active citizens, freed from menial tasks, can function. (lower
class – morally and politically no part of the state)
(the means in relation to the state)
Slavery
- nature is universally ruled by the contrast of the superior and the inferior.
- it is just that the superior rule over the inferior – to the advantage of both
- man is superior to animals
- male to female
- soul to body, reason to passion
- master (moral superiority) to slave –slave is a slave by nature
Property –
Plato –system of private ownership & management of property among the commoners
- rulers have no means of production – little or no private property
Aristotle – Private property is not in itself a threat to moral perfection
1) inducive and progress argument –everyone has a distinct interest–will not complain of
others & they will make progress because everyone will attend to his own business.
- selfinterst – social progress through greater individual effort and competence
2)pleasure that the ownership of property gives(material selfrealization,not selfintrest)
3) Liberality- enables generosity and liberalty
4) Private property has existed for a long time – the idea of private property is essentially
human
- cure for social imperfections is not equality of property but the moral improvement of man.
- Nobler sort – trained not to desire more
- Lower sort – must be kept down, but not ill treated.
Best Legislative aim – equitable, rahter than equal disrtibution of private property.
- essence: Not who owns property but how it is used.
Book
The Republic and The Laws
Government
The end of the state is more important than the form; therefore Cicero does not advocate any
of the three forms. He wanted a mixed constitution: a balanced combination between
kingship, aristocracy and democracy.
State
Cicero had a sense of the world; he looked further than the city-state. The state is a
“community of law”. It’s an honour to defend the state with your life.
Virtue
With a guide, everyone can attain virtue. It is not enough to posses virtue if you do not use it.
Slavery
Nature has provided not only that those men who are superior in virtue and spirit should rule
the weaker, but also that the weaker should be willing to obey the stronger.
Extra
Cicero’s work resembles a lot of Plato and Aristotle.
Cicero
Law and administration are the two great contributions of Rome to the government and
politics in the western world. Roman law is still the law for a great portion of the globe, it
adjusts itself to changing social and economic conditions.
The only Roman political writer who has exercised enduring influence throughout the ages is
Cicero (106-43 B.C.) He was a lawyer who’s works are mainly a reflection on the politics
than on political theory.
Cicero was a great supporter of the Roman republic and he thought primarily of political and
administrative remedies for the decay of the ancient republican spirit. He looked into the past,
instead of accepting new economic forces. Cicero believed in moderation, concord and
constitutionalism.
Cicero’s tow main works on government are Repbulic and Laws, referencing to Plato’s works.
There is a great deal of similarity with Plato and Aristotle, but Cicero’s temper and outlook
give his political view a different meaning; Cicero had a sense of the world, which helped him
describe everything.
Cicero believed in the mission of the Roman empire, but e understood that imperial unity
could be attained only through liberty and self-government of the constituent parts. He
believed that the whole universe is “one commonwealth of which both gods and men are
members”. And he believed in the importance of law and natural law. The rule of law is
something in which citizens are equal. Cicero believed that true law is in accordance with
nature. Cicero sees the foundation of law in our natural inclination to love our fellow-men.
Cicero considered a balanced combination between kingship, aristocracy and democracy the
best constitution. Cicero believes strongly in the importance of liberty in the state.
Book
The City of God
Justice
The essence of justice is the relation between man and God, from which right relations
between man and man will inevitably follow. Human justice is not just, because of the
torturing, which makes innocent men confess crimes they didn’t commit.
Nature
St. Augustine states that that which comes first is natural (city of men) and that which comes
afterward is spiritual (city of God). From this he derives that man are all descendants first of
Adam and are therefore evil, and become good and spiritual only afterwards, through Christ.
St. Augustine concludes there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot exist, but there
cannot be a nature in which there is no good.
Natural law: we help other people for self-preservation.
Government
Even those in power do not rule from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe
to others, not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.
State
The earthly city symbolically represents, but is not identical with the state. While the earthly
city is the antithesis of any value whatsoever, the state by contract does have positive value.
According to St. Augustine, the life of the wise man must be social, and there is no man that
doesn’t desire peace, and because the state provides social peace, it has its good in the world.
The state is a necessary evil, for if you removed it, it would be worse.
The state is not forever: birth-growth-decline, therefore nationalism is nonsense (you believe
in the state, which fades away).
Virtue
People who live in the heavenly city (City of God) have virtue, whereas people who live in
the earthly city don’t.
Slavery
God intended man to have dominion over beasts, not man over man. Therefore, slavery is not
the result of man’s nature but the result of sin (not of the person, but of mankind). It is both
punishment and remedy for sin. St. Augustine says that bad slaves are made into good by the
example of Christ, and that slaves should not refuse to serve wicked masters. He thinks that it
is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than a slave of lust.
Extra
Augustanism is the fusion of Plato and Christianity.
No matter how bad or evil a person is, he seeks nothing but peace. The peace of all things is
the tranquillity of order.
St Augustine
Justice is the foundation of the State
Without Justice the kingdoms are great robberies. p186
When young influence by Manicheans who saw the world very much divided in a
clear-cut way between good and bad
Augustine believes the soul to be pure in all cases and corrupted by the needs and
wants of the flesh..- peace of the body consists in its various components being
arranged proportionally.
Peace of irrational soul=harmonious repose of the appetites
Peace or rational soul = harmony of knowledge and action
The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the
living creature
Prime cause of slavery=sin
Even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command for they rule not from
a sense of command but from a sense of the duty they own others – not because
they are proud of authority but because they love mercy
Happier to be the slave of a man than of lust – lust lays waste to mens hearts
Peace exists
1) In so far as one does not suffer
2) In so far as one’d nature continues to exist
There might be peace without war, but no kind of war exists without some peace.
There is a nature whithout evil. Yet there is no nature without good (all seek peace)
One’s nature is by definition good, yet it may become perverted when one does not
abide in the truth or the tranquility of order.
God preserves order by means of punishment of evil that is committed. He took away
som much good as that he who is punished is still aware of his loss.
He who sins is still worse if he rejoices in his loss of righteousness.Whereas thegrief
of the “good or peace” one has lost is evidence of a good nature as he is stirred to do
so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly to itself.
God imparted to men some good things adapted to this life such as we can enjoy in
our lives from al things needful for the preservation and recovery of that peace and
evertything the body requires to sustain or improve it.
All men who make good use of these advantages suited to the peace of this
mortal condition should receive the peace of immortality accompanied by glory and
honor in an endless life made fit for the enjoyment of God and of one another in god.
All men who make bad use of their blessings should lose them and not recieve
the others.
Irrational animals –
- seek that the peace of the body may contribute to the peace of the soul.
If bodily peace be wanting a bar is put even to the peace of the
irrational soul since it cannot obtain the gratification of tis appetites.
- Love of peace which binds body and soul in close alliance.
Rational man – peace of the rational soul subjects all else
– his intellect is to have free play and must regulate his actions
– that he may enjoy the well ordered harmony of knowledge and action
which constitutes the peace of the rational soul.
– Therefore he must desire to not be disturbed either by pain, desire or
death
– As the human mind is rather liable to mistakes he requires a Master in
his pursuit of knowledge, whom he may obey so that he exhibits the
well ordered obedience to eternal law.
i. Master (God) indoctrinates
1. Love of God
2. Love of his neighbor as much as himself – must get him to
love God as well.
3. Love of himself
- Consequently he will be at peace with all men as far as in him lies. The order of this
concord is: 1) That a man injure no one
2) That a man do good to every one he can reach – primarily his
household – He who rules, cares for (serves) the rest. They who are
cared for obey.
4) In the family of the just man who lives by faith those who rule serve those
whom they seem to command. For they rule not from a love of power (pride of
authority) but from a sense of duty that they owe the others (love of mercy).
Slave – born bad, slavery is a penalty - but by sserving good, being loyal and just
one need not necessarily rewmain in that degenrate position. Perhaps in the earthly
life but not in the city of god.
St. Augustine
Sinful weaknesses are there because of bodies (e.g. angels are not sinful).
A body provides an opening for sin.
Present: legal/illegal
Augustine: good/evil
The great struggle in the universe is not between church and state, but
between two opposing ways of life: in the earthly city, the love of self, the
lust of power predominate, whereas in the heavenly city the love of God,
‘even to the contempt of self’, is the foundation of order.
The essence of justice is the relation between man and God, from which
right relations between man and man will inevitably follow.
St. Augustine nowhere clearly defines the church; in one place he calls it
the Invisible Church of God’s Elect (including some as yet to be
converted), and in another, the Visible Church, made up of true believers
and of those whose Christianity is little more than formal membership in
the church.
Just as the heavenly city symbolically represents, but is not identical with,
the church, so the earthly city is symbolically reflected in the state.
At this point St. Augustine parts with Plato and Cicero, who so strongly
influenced him: the peace that the state provides is, according to St.
Augustine, not an end in itself, but only a means, a condition that makes
the service to God possible.
St. Augustine:
Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self,
even to the contempt of God; the heavenly love of God, even to the
contempt of self.
This race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those
who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God.
And these we also symbolically call the two cities, or the two communities
of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternal punishment with
the devil.
In each individual there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from
which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain;
afterwards is that which is well-approved, to which we may by advancing
attain, and in which when we have reached it, we may abide.
That which fell out between Cain and Abel illustrated the hatred that
subsists between the two cities, that of God and that of men.
(Abel=spiritual; Cain=earthly)
If home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what is?
After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human society –
the first being the house, and the second the city. And the world, as it is
larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the greater sea is the more dangerous.
Even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living
have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits
them better.
As there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain without
some kind of life, there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot
exist; but there cannot be a nature in which there is no good.
As man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in
common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul.
In the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim
journeying on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom
they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a
sense of the duty they owe to others
God did not intend that his rational creature, who was made in his image,
should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation – not man
over man, but man over the beasts.
The prime cause of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion
of his fellow – that which does not happen save by the judgment of God,
God: ‘one who doeth sin is the servant of sin’. And beyond question it is a
happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust. Moreover, when men
are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does
as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the
master.
To be does not live innocent we must not only do harm to no man, but
also restrain him from sin or punish his sin, so that either the man himself
who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be warned by his
example.
The earthly city, which by faith, seeks an earthly peace, end: the
combination of men’s wills to attain the things which are helpful to this
life.
The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and
lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this
mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away.
St. Augustine
Introductory text
St. Augustine was not a political theorist but a theologian. He was interested in God, Faith,
and Salvation and not so much in the organisation of the state and its political-juridicial
relations to the church. The heavenly city, or the City of God, is therefore not identical with
the church and the earthly city is not the state. St. Augustine was primarily concerned with
ways of life and not with organisation of life. The great struggle in the universe is not between
church and state, but between two opposing ways of life: in the earthly city, the love of self
and the lust for power dominate, whereas in the heavenly city the love of God is the
foundation of order. St. Augustine therefore divides the human race into two parts: the one
consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God.
St. Augustine thus emphasizes himself that the two communities of the heavenly and earthly
cities can be called cities only in a mystical or alligorical sense.
St. Augustine says that the basic conflict between Good and Evil rages not only in mankind as
a whole but in every individual as well. Just as Plato had stated that the problem of the just
society was that of the just individual writ large, so St. Augustine notes that the struggle
between Good and and Evil in the world is closely related to, and a reflection of, the conflicts
within the individual human being. Plato introduced the idea of the individual human soul
being composed of three rivaling elements: apetite, courage and reason, representing three
types of men and three ways of living. Justice, or righteousness, is the central concept of
Plato’s Republic. St. Augustine transforms this secular conception of justice into a religious
one: the essence of justice is the relation between man and God, from which right relations
between man and man will inevitably follow.
According to St. Augustine there must be some agency of earth that leads in the right direction
toward the City of God. With this he means the church. It is part of the heavenly city on earth.
The earthly city symbolically represents, but is not indentical with the state. The earthly city is
not identical with any political organisation but is the community of the unrighteous,
including sinful members of the church and exluding righteous citizens of the state. While the
earthly city is the antithesis of any value whatsoever, the state by contract does have positive
value. According to St. Augustine, the life of the wise man must be social, and there is no man
that doesn’t desire peace, and because the state provides social peace, it has its good in the
world.
St. Augustine believes that man was created in God’s image to be master of irrational
creatures, beasts, but not of fellow man. Therefore, slavery is not the result of man’s nature
but the result of sin. It is both punishment and remedy for sin. He says that bad slaves are
made into good by the example of Christ, and that slaves should not refuse to serve wicked
masters.
EQUITABLE RULE
It is in accordance with the natural order that the father is the head of the family (pater
familias) When any member of the family is disobedient to him and so disrupts the domestic
peace, he must be corrected by the pater familias and be readjusted to the family harmony.
Since the family is the beginning or element of the city it follows that domestic peace has
relation to civic peace. Where there exists domestic peace, there will exist civic peace.
Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Book
The Prince
Justice
Wrong or right is irrelevant.
Nature
Machiavelli takes a radically pessimistic view of human nature: men are bad.
Government
Machiavelli is more interested in the means in which the ruler rules, than in the end,
expanding power, for this is inherent in the ruler. The means, like technical skill of ruling,
ability to come in political power, stay there and expand it, are what makes a ruler virtuous.
Fortune also plays a role: it can make or break a prince; therefore he should be smart and
flexible to change (fox) but strong (lion) at the same time (virtue tries to control fortune).
The ruler should be able to fight with the method of man (by law) as well as with the method
of beasts (by force). He should be constant ready for war, be a true friend or a true enemy and
rather be feared than loved, but not hated. Furthermore he should seem to have qualities
reputed good in other value systems, but should not necessarily have them.
State
According to Machiavelli there is no higher end of which the state is a mean: power is and
end in itself. The state is an autonomous system of values independent of any other source.
The state should be the key focus of the ruler: the stability of the state is more important than
personal gain and the state should never be gone with the ruler.
Virtue
Machiavelli describes virtue as manliness, the capacity to survive, the ability to understand
reality and adapt action to reality in a flexible and non-ideological manner (prudence). A
virtuous ruler is ambitious, ruthless, crafty and successful. (Maiolo:) Virtue is being able to
deceive without being found out.
In Machiavelli, what is good and bad is relative: it depends on the system of values: religion,
morality or politics (the reason of the state). In politics goodness is efficiency: an efficient
means of acquiring, consolidating and expanding power is good (though this may violate
other value systems).
Extra
Machiavelli sees religion as a tool of influence and control: where religion exists it is easy to
introduce armies and discipline. The function of religion is to keep men united, it does not
matter whether what they believe in is true or false. He was critical about the church, because
it keeps the country divided, instead of uniting it.
Machiavelli
In Machiavelli’s view, a prince should acquire, retain and expand power. When the
prince is the head of state, he has to maintain the state. If the prince maintains the
state, “the means will always be judged honorable and praised by every one”.
Machiavelli does not really encourage immoral behavior, although he recognizes that
it is sometimes necessary to do so. He writes that a prince who wants to maintain
himself has to “learn how not to be good”. Machiavelli describes murder, breaking
promises etc. Such behavior can cause vices. On one hand, a prince should avoid
scandals that can cause lost of power. On the other hand, a prince “must not mind
incurring the scandal of those vices, without which it would be difficult to save the
state”.
As said, a prince must avoid being hated. Machiavelli writes that princes who create
a great reputation “are very difficult to conspire against”. If a prince has a great
reputation, a person who conspires has to fear the people after “his crime is
accomplished”. So, a prince need not to trouble too much about conspiracies when
people are well disposed. Gaining of a good reputation can be done in several ways.
Machiavelli writes that the prince “should let the carrying out of unpopular duties
devolve on others, and bestow the favours themselves”. Furthermore, Machiavelli
describes that a prince should honor “those who excel in every art”. He should
stimulate that citizens work in trade or agriculture, for instance. He might also please
his citizens with festivals.
A prince who wants a reputation of liberality will have to “consume by such means all
his resources” that he has to impose a heavy burden of taxation. As a result, his
subjects will hate him. Thus, a prince should not mind a reputation of a miser
because being hated by subjects will reduce his power. Machiavelli gives two
exceptions: A person who wants to become a prince sometimes need to be
considered as liberal. Furthermore, a prince who “marches with his armies, and lives
by plunder […] and is dealing with the wealth of others” needs to be regarded as
liberal because otherwise, his soldiers would not follow him.
New princes never disarm his citizens, because the citizens will feel offended and
distrusted. As a result hatred is created. On the other hand, when a prince acquires a
new state in addition to an old one, he needs to disarm those citizens. Furthermore,
princes find old enemies more useful than people who were intiailly trusted because
these old enemies have to gain the prince’s trust. Moreover, a prince who fears his
own people more then foreigners should live in a fortress. If the prince fears
foreigners more than his own people, he can live without fortress.
There are two methods of fighting. A prince can fight either by law or by force. If
fighting by law is insufficient, a prince has to fight by force. Machiavelli thinks that one
method without the other method is not durable.
Finally, a prince should not think that he “can always follow a save policy”. Instead, all
policies are doubtful. For instance, when two “neighboring powers” are in war, he
should declare himself without reserve in favor of one of these powers. If he does not
do so, he will become “a pray to the victor, to the pleasure and satisfaction of the one
who has been defeated”.
Machiavelli
The Prince
Constant Readiness for War
A prince should have no other aim or thought but war and its organization and discipline, for
that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands, and it is of such virtue that it not
only maintains those who are born princes, but often enables men of private fortune to attain
that rank. Because there is no comparison whatever between an armed and a disarmed man, it
is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey one who is unarmed. For one
being disdainful and the other suspicious, it is not possible for them to act well together. In
peace the prince ought to practice the exercise of war more than in war, which he can do in
two ways; by action and by study. As to action, he must, besides keeping his men well
disciplined and exercised, engage continually in hunting, and thus accustom his body to
hardships; and meanwhile learn the nature of the land. This knowledge is useful in two ways:
one learns to know one’s country, and can the better see how to defend it, and by means of the
knowledge and experience gained in one locality, one can easily understand any other. As to
exercise for the mind, the prince ought to read history and study the actions of eminent men,
see how they acted in warfare, examine the causes of their victories and defeats, and above
all, do as some men have done in the past, who have imitated some one, who has been much
praised and glorified, and have always kept his deeds and actions before them.
Hobbes (1588-1679)
Book
Leviathan
Justice
There can be no unjust law, because laws are the “rules of just and unjust”. The written laws
are just, because the Leviathan made them, therefore you should obey the written laws.
As to the relation between civil law and natural law, Hobbes maintains that they “contain each
other.” The most important difference between civil and natural law is that civil law is written
and natural is not.
Nature
Men are rational egoists, because they are naturally equal in mind and body and thus they
want the same. Therefore, in the state of nature, men are in a condition of war of “every man
against every man”.
For Hobbes, natural law is no law at all, but only qualities that dispose men to peace and
obedience, like equity, justice, gratitude, and other moral values. These qualities are not true
laws, because, before the state is established, there is no authority to decide finally which idea
of the law is binding. In practice, therefore, the law of nature is nothing but a set of general
principles of the civil law.
Natural rights only exist before the establishment of the government: afterwards written law is
all that counts.
Government
The social contract of Hobbes is made between subjects and subjects, not between subjects
and sovereign (Leviathan). Leviathan is the super state power, which everyone agrees to obey,
but the Leviathan itself has no obligations towards the people.
About forms of government, Hobbes rejects the ethical distinction of Aristotle completely
(whether a government operates in the interest of the people or in interest of the rulers), and
argues that governments can only differ in numerical composition. For practical reasons, the
state should be ruled by one, because two or more rulers lead to disagreement and civil war,
which is worse than having a Leviathan who has all power.
State
If all rational egoists lived together without a state or government, life would be brutish and
short. Because men have a fear of death, they have the desire for peace; therefore it is better
for rational egoists to have a government.
Virtue
Hobbes rejects values and universally valid ethical ideas. According to Hobbes, ‘good’ and
‘evil’ are not ethical qualities of an object or action, but merely expressions of an individual’s
feelings about them.
Extra
From a strictly political viewpoint, Hobbes saw in religion and churches the most serious
danger of civil disobedience.
Hobbes
Human Nature
Human beings are physical objects, according to Hobbes, sophisticated machines all
of whose functions and activities can be described and explained in purely
mechanistic terms. Even thought itself, therefore, must be understood as n instance
of the physical operation of the human body. Sensation, for example, involves a
series of mechanical processes operating within the human nervous system, by
means of which the sensible features of material things produce ideas in the brains of
the human beings who perceive them. (Leviathan I 1)
Human action is similarly to be explained on Hobbes's view. Specific desires and
appetites arise in the human body and are experienced as discomforts or pains
which must be overcome. Thus, each of us is motivated to act in such ways as we
believe likely to relieve our discomfort, to preserve and promote our own well-being.
(Leviathan I 6) Everything we choose to do is strictly determined by this natural
inclination to relieve the physical pressures that impinge upon our bodies. Human
volition is nothing but the determination of the will by the strongest present desire.
Hobbes nevertheless supposed that human agents are free in the sense that their
activities are not under constraint from anyone else. On this compatibilist view, we
have no reason to complain about the strict determination of the will so long as we
are not subject to interference from outside ourselves. (Leviathan II 21)
As Hobbes acknowledged, this account of human nature emphasizes our animal
nature, leaving each of us to live independently of everyone else, acting only in his or
her own self-interest, without regard for others. This produces what he called the
"state of war," a way of life that is certain to prove "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short." (Leviathan I 13) The only escape is by entering into contracts with each other
—mutually beneficial agreements to surrender our individual interests in order to
achieve the advantages of security that only a social existence can provide.
(Leviathan I 14)
Human Society
Unable to rely indefinitely on their individual powers in the effort to secure livelihood
and contentment, Hobbes supposed, human beings join together in the formation of
a commonwealth. Thus, the commonwealth as a whole embodies a network of
associated contracts and provides for the highest form of social organization. On
Hobbes's view, the formation of the commonwealth creates a new, artificial person
(the Leviathan) to whom all responsibility for social order and public welfare is
entrusted. (Leviathan II 17)
Of course, someone must make decisions on behalf of this new whole, and that
person will be the sovereign. The commonwealth-creating covenant is not in essence
a relationship between subjects and their sovereign at all. Rather, what counts is the
relationship among subjects, all of whom agree to divest themselves of their native
powers in order to secure the benefits of orderly government by obeying the dictates
of the sovereign authority. (Leviathan II 18) That's why the minority who might prefer
a different sovereign authority have no complaint, on Hobbes's view: even though
they have no respect for this particular sovereign, they are still bound by their
contract with fellow-subjects to be governed by a single authority. The sovereign is
nothing more than the institutional embodiment of orderly government.
Since the decisions of the sovereign are entirely arbitrary, it hardly matters where
they come from, so long as they are understood and obeyed universally. Thus,
Hobbes's account explicitly leaves open the possibility that the sovereign will itself be
a corporate person—a legislature or an assembly of all citizens—as well as a single
human being. Regarding these three forms, however, Hobbes himself maintained
that the commonwealth operates most effectively when a hereditary monarch
assumes the sovereign role. (Leviathan II 19) Investing power in a single natural
person who can choose advisors and rule consistently without fear of internal
conflicts is the best fulfillment of our social needs. Thus, the radical metaphysical
positions defended by Hobbes lead to a notably conservative political result, an
endorsement of the paternalistic view.
Hobbes argued that the commonwealth secures the liberty of its citizens. Genuine
human freedom, he maintained, is just the ability to carry out one's will without
interference from others. This doesn't entail an absence of law; indeed, our
agreement to be subject to a common authority helps each of us to secure liberty
with respect to others. (Leviathan II 21) Submission to the sovereign is absolutely
decisive, except where it is silent or where it claims control over individual rights to
life itself, which cannot be transferred to anyone else. But the structure provided by
orderly government, according to Hobbes, enhances rather than restricts individual
liberty.
Whether or not the sovereign is a single heredetary monarch, of course, its
administration of social order may require the cooperation and assistance of others.
Within the commonwealth as a whole, there may arise smaller "bodies politic" with
authority over portions of the lives of those who enter into them. The sovereign will
appoint agents whose responsibility is to act on its behalf in matters of less than
highest importance. Most important, the will of the sovereign for its subjects will be
expressed in the form of civil laws that have either been decreed or tacitly accepted.
(Leviathan II 26) Criminal violations of these laws by any subject will be appropriately
punished by the sovereign authority.
Despite his firm insistence on the vital role of the sovereign as the embodiment of the
commonwealth, Hobbes acknowledged that there are particular circumstances under
which it may fail to accomplish its purpose. (Leviathan II 29) If the sovereign has too
little power, is made subject to its own laws, or allows its power to be divided,
problems will arise. Similarly, if individual subjects make private judgments of right
and wrong based on conscience, succomb to religious enthisiasm, or acquire
excessive private property, the state will suffer. Even a well-designed commonwealth
may, over time, cease to function and will be dissolved.
Simpler explanation
All men are equal – all men desire to attain the same end
When two men desire a thing they cannot both have – war
Conservation of the self implies that one ought to anticipate the enemy’s moves –
acquire dominion over so many men that there is no threat.
There is grief in one another’s company for all attempt to exert a greater value from
his condemners, e.g. through damage.
During the time that men live without a common power to keep them all in awe they
are in a condition of war of every man against every man.
War is
1) Battle
2) A tract of time, wherein the will to battle is sufficiently known – the known
disposition thereto. (All other time = peace)
Men live without other security than their own strength and invention – there is no
place for society, civilization and industry – man lives in continual fear of violent
death.
Man is naturally inclined to distrust one another.
The desire and passions, nor the actions that follow them, of man are in themselves
any sin till they know a law that forbids them. A person who makes these laws must
be agreed upon.
Fear of death is the passion that inclines men to peace. Attractions of peace on the
one hand give way to the desire for a commodious living.
Bond between the subjects and rulers are by their own nature weak – maintained
through fear of punishment, a threat issued by the ruler. They are not maintained
through the difficulty but through the danger of breaking them.
Liberty
1) Corporal liberty – normal citizens have corporal liberty in that they are not
physically restrained
2) Exemption from law – equivalent to the condition of war.
a. Laws are of no power whatsoever without an executive force – the
prince
Liberty of a subject lies in those things which, in regulating their actions the
sovereign, and hence the law has praetermitted.
- Liberty to
1. Buy and sell
2. Contract with one another
3. Make personal choices
4. Choose their own house, diet and trade of life.
5. Institute their own children
Even in modern totalitarian regimes person have a certain degree of liberty, you
cannot limit thought. 1984 limit though by means of limiting one’s vocabulary.
Sovereign has power over life and death – not a civil liberty.
Nothing that the sovereign does is either injustice or injury (though it may constitute
iniquity) for the subject is author of the sovereign’s acts
If the subject is author of the sovereign’s acts he is author of all that the sovereign
rules, hence the subject is author of the restrictions imposed upon his own liberty.
The subject has endowed the ruler with right to act, as he deems right.
Actions against the law of nature – against equity – are not offenses against the
subject himself but against god who prohibited all iniquity by the law of nature.
First of all it must be mentioned that one can distinguish between different kinds of
liberty.
Liberty of which is often spoken in political theories throughout history whose ideas
originate in the learning’s of philosophers form Antiquity, is the liberty of the
commonwealth.
Liberty of the commonwealth – is the same with that which every man then should
have if there were neither civil laws nor commonwealth at all. Effects are also the
same – condition of perpetual war – no propriety, no security, but full and absolute
liberty in every man – nothing that restrict him (yet fear of death does restrict him to
enjoy life)
Locke (1631-1704)
Book
Two Treatises of Government
Nature
In the state of nature, man does not differ a lot from man in society. In the state of nature, man
can reason to get to the natural law, and if this is violated, the injured party should punish the
transgressor. There three drawbacks for this system: 1 men are biased and can mistake their
interest for general rules of law 2 no third party, objective judge 3 injured party not always
strong enough to execute the just sentence of the law.
Government
Government is established, not by contract but by a fiduciary trust. The legislature is the
“supreme power” over the other organs of government (especially executive power), but the
people are still superior to this supreme power. The people have the power to remove or alter
the legislature, when they feel it is different from the organ they put their trust in. In the
theory of divine right, only the ruler has rights; in the theory of contract between people and
legislator (so not Hobbes), both the people and the ruler have rights; in Locke’s conception of
the government as trustee, only the people have rights.
Locke lists four major limitations to legislature: 1 law must apply equally to all 2 law must be
designed for the good of the people 3 legislature must not raise taxes without the consent of
the people or their representatives 4 legislature must not transfer its lawmaking power to
anybody else.
Absolute monarchy is, according to Locke, no form of civil government at all: the state of
nature is even better than that, because in the latter everyone judges over their own case,
whereas in absolute monarchy only one person has that liberty: the king. Locke does not at all
oppose to revolting against despots, as long as it is done against unjust and unlawful force and
by the majority. By bringing in a higher law above the law, Locke brings in more rebellion,
according to his opponents. Locke recognises this, but says that people will rebel under any
form of government. Furthermore, by allowing people to rebel, it will be less forceful than
when rebellion is prohibited.
State
Locke makes a sharp distinction between state and society, in which the latter is the superior.
If the government falls, society will remain and set up a new government (contrary to
Hobbes’s beliefs), whereas if society falls, the government cannot exist any longer.
Locke’s state is an instrument of the purposes that society sets for it. Law precedes the state in
Locke, but follows it in Hobbes.
Property
Among the rights that precede the state, Locke stresses that of property. The reason why men
give up the state of nature for civil society is “for the mutual preservation of their lives,
liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property”. Locke saw property thus in
a broader point of view. To Locke, property meant, not the exercise of power over others, but
the protection against power of others, e.g. the power of government, custom or privilege.
Labour creates property, which Locke derived, not from the civil law, but from the natural
law. Labour also determines the value of property. Locke says that the right to property is
limited, but sets no clear boundries.
Online sources:
In Two Treatises of Government he has two purposes in view: to refute the doctrine of the divine and
absolute right of the Monarch and to establish a theory which would reconcile the liberty of the citizen
with political order. Although there is little direct reference to Hobbes, Locke seems to have had
Hobbes in mind when he argued that the doctrine of absolute monarchy leaves sovereign and subjects
in the state of nature towards one another. The constructive doctrines which are elaborated in the
second treatise became the basis of social and political philosophy for generations. Labor is the origin
and justification of property; contract or consent is the ground of government and fixes its limits.
Behind both doctrines lies the idea of the independence of the individual person. The state of nature
knows no government; but in it, as in political society, men are subject to the moral law, which is the
law of God. Men are born free and equal in rights. Whatever a man "mixes his labour with" is his to
use. Or, at least, this was so in the primitive condition of human life in which there was enough for all
and "the whole earth was America." Locke sees that, when men have multiplied and land has become
scarce, rules are needed beyond those which the moral law or law of nature supplies. But the origin of
government is traced not to this economic necessity, but to another cause. The moral law is always
valid, but it is not always kept. In the state of nature all men equally have the right to punish
transgressors: civil society originates when, for the better administration of the law, men agree to
delegate this function to certain officers. Thus government is instituted by a "social contract"; its
powers are limited, and they involve reciprocal obligations; moreover, they can be modified or
rescinded by the authority which conferred them. Locke's theory is thus no more historical than
Hobbes's. It is a rendering of the facts of constitutional government in terms of thought, and it served
its purpose as a justification of the Revolution settlement in accordance with the ideas of the time.
Locke's most influential political theories are outlined in his Two Treatises of Government (1690). The
main points of this work are as follows:
∙ He agreed that the state is supreme, but only if it is bound by civil and
‘natural law’.
∙ Locke held that popular revolution was not only a right but sometimes an
obligation.
Context
John Locke (1632-1704) is a predominant figure in the history of political theory and
philosophy. His most extensive work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690),
formalized empiricism, a branch of inquiry which focuses on the experience of the sense to
gather knowledge, rather than speculation or intellectual deduction. Locke's concept of the
tabula rasa the notion that people are born blank, with no knowledge or faults, remains a
hugely influential philosophical concept. Much Enlightenment philosophy is based on Locke's
writings, particularly his adherence to rationality and his refutation of the importance of
innate personal traits in favor of experience in shaping personality.
Two Treatises of Government aim--to defend the Glorious Revolution. Locke also
sought to refute the pro-Absolutist theories of Sir Robert Filmer, which he and his Whig
associates felt were getting far too popular. Although not as immediate a challenge, Locke's
work also serves as a major counter-argument to Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, in which
Hobbes argues in favor of absolutist government to keep people from abusing property and
privacy. Many persistent rifts in political theory today stem from the fundamental
disagreements between Locke's Second Treatise and Hobbes' Leviathan.
The Second Treatise of Government, subtitled An Essay Concerning the True Original
Extent and End of Civil Government, stands today as an extremely influential work that
shaped political philosophy and provided a basis for later political doctrines, such as those set
forth in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
Brief Summary
The Second Treatise of Government places sovereignty into the hands of the people.
Locke's fundamental argument is that people are equal and invested with natural rights in a
state of nature in which they live free from outside rule. In the state of nature, natural law
governs behavior, and each person has license to execute that law against someone who
wrongs them by infringing on their rights. People take what they need from the earth, but
hoard just enough to cover their needs. Eventually, people begin to trade their excess goods
with each other, until they develop a common currency for barter, or money. Money
eliminates limits on the amount of property they can obtain (unlike food, money does not
spoil), and they begin to gather estates around themselves and their families.
People then exchange some of their natural rights to enter into society with other people, and
be protected by common laws and a common executive power to enforce the laws. People
need executive power to protect their property and defend their liberty. The civil state is
beholden to the people, and has power over the people only insofar as it exists to protect and
preserve their welfare. Locke describes a state with a separate judicial, legislative, and
executive branch--the legislative branch being the most important of the three, since it
determines the laws that govern civil society.
People have the right to dissolve their government, if that government ceases to work
solely in their best interest. The government has no sovereignty of its own--it exists to serve
the people.
To sum up, Locke's model consists of a civil state, built upon the natural rights common
to a people who need and welcome an executive power to protect their property and liberties;
the government exists for the people's benefit and can be replaced or overthrown if it ceases to
function toward that primary end.
Overall Analysis
The Second Treatise of Government remains a cornerstone of Western political
philosophy. Locke's theory of government based on the sovereignty of the people has been
extraordinarily influential since its publication in 1690--the concept of the modern liberal-
democratic state is rooted in Locke's writings.
Locke's Second Treatise starts with a liberal premise of a community of free, equal
individuals, all possessed of natural rights. Since these individuals will want to acquire goods
and will come into inevitable conflict, Locke invokes a natural law of morality to govern them
before they enter into society. Locke presumes people will understand that, in order to best
protect themselves and their property, they must come together into some sort of body politic
and agree to adhere to certain standards of behavior. Thus, they relinquish some of their
natural rights to enter into a social compact.
In this civil society, the people submit natural freedoms to the common laws of the
society; in return, they receive the protection of the government. By coming together, the
people create an executive power to enforce the laws and punish offenders. The people entrust
these laws and the executive power with authority. When, either through an abuse of power or
an impermissible change, these governing bodies cease to represent the people and instead
represent either themselves or some foreign power, the people may--and indeed should--rebel
against their government and replace it with one that will remember its trust. This is perhaps
the most pressing concern of Locke's Second Treatise, given his motivation in writing the
work (justifying opposition to Charles II) and publishing it (justifying the revolution of King
William)--to explain the conditions in which a people has the right to replace one government
with another.
Locke links his abstract ideals to a deductive theory of unlimited personal property
wholly protected from governmental invention; in fact, in some cases Locke places the
sanctity of property over the sanctity of life (since one can relinquish one's life by engaging in
war, but cannot relinquish one's property, to which others might have ownership rights). This
joining of ideas--consensual, limited government based upon natural human rights and
dignity, and unlimited personal property, based on those same rights, makes the Second
Treatise a perfectly-constructed argument against absolutism and unjust governments. It
appeals both to abstract moral notions and to a more grounded view of the self-interest that
leads people to form societies and governments.
Questions for Study
1. Does Locke's concern with protection of property as one of the central purposes of civil
society contradict his work in defense of universal human rights?
2. What appear to be the assumptions about human nature on which Locke bases his depiction
of the state of nature? Be sure to use examples from the text to support your arguments.
3. Using the Second Treatise and the US Constitution, describe some ideas that the
Constitution seems to borrow from Locke; discuss ideas that deviate from his philosophy as
well.
4. Discuss the implications and problems of applying Locke's ideas to international relations.
This may require some research on modern political theory.
5. Libertarians often cite John Locke as a great inspiration behind their ideology. Do you
agree or disagree with this claim? Again, you might want to inform your answer with
additional reading and research, perhaps including the works of Ayn Rand).
6. Based on passages from the Second Treatise, how do you feel John Locke uses the Bible to
support his arguments. What seems to be John Locke's own relationship to scripture as a basis
for political arguments?
7. John Locke is perhaps most famous for his theory of the tabula rasa, (the infant's "blank
slate" state, free from good or evil). How is this idea important to his Second Treatise?
8. Discuss the risks associated with Locke's allowance of executive privelege. Do you feel his
theories adequately defend against these risks?
9. Discuss the difference between paternal society and political society, as Locke sees it, and
explain how paternal society can in fact turn into a form of political society.
10. Who does Locke's theory of money's origin benefit the most? By retracing the theory from
its origin in natural rights, describe the assumptions behind each step, and the result of the
theory that results.
Locke _ Sara van den Hof
Important Points
● The State of Nature/ Law of Nature (Importance of Reason)
● Theory of Property
● Relation individuals to the state (liberty)
● (Right to Rebel)
Property
God made all things on earth, and the earth and all creatures are common to all men,
but every man has his own property too: the labour of his body and the work of his hands.
Thus, by processing something, man makes it properly his property. Taking something (eg
food) that is common to all is not a robbery, because by taking it from the state of nature, man
made it his own; if this rule would not apply, mankind would have long died from starvation.
Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. Man can appropriate land to
himself by cultivating it, and it is the degree of labour put into it that determines the value.
From this it follows that, although man was given the things of nature, the foundation of
property is still in himself, in his labour. At first labour gave the right of property, but after
that, men made agreements dividing the property (I am not quite sure whether I understood
this properly, see p 396).
The most useful things to men are things that will waste quickly, such as food, and it
would be foolish to hoard these, as well as dishonest, because they are wasting away while
someone else might need them. This is where money came in, as that can be hoarded. Industry
had provided men with different proportions of property, and through the advent of money,
they could enlarge it. It only works this way, though, when there are things both lasting and
scarce, because otherwise there is no point in hoarding it. As soon as there is something like
money, man will start trying to enlarge his possessions. As gold/ silver (money) is only of
little use to mankind for survival, it has decided on an unequal possession of the earth.
Political Society
Man has by nature the power to preserve his property (which includes his life) from
attacks, and to judge and punish others for breaches of law. However, political society can
only exist where the members of society have handed this natural power over to the
community, provided they can appeal to this law too. The community then becomes the
umpire (judge). “And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of
civil society, which is to judge by standing laws how far offences are to be punished when
committed within the commonwealth.” This process occurs everytime a group of men in the
state of nature into society. If there is not one such body politic, men are still in the state of
nature. The end of civil society is removing the inconveniences resulting from the state of
nature. From this it also becomes clear that absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil
society, because when one man has both executive and legislative power, there is no judge,
and therefore this monarch and his subjects are still in the state of nature, and if he invades the
rights of one his subjects, they are degraded.
The End of Government
A question arises: if man is so free and equal in the state of nature, why would he give
up this freedom? The answer is that the enjoyment of this is very uncertain, and the end of a
commonwealth is therefore the preservation of their property, because there are several things
lacking in the state of nature:
1) There is need of an established and known law
2) There is need of a know and indifferent judge
3) There is need for support a sentence and help to execute it
Because of this mankind is quickly driven into society from the state of nature.
Then the question arises who will decide what good and what bad government is. Locke says
the people. This question, however, does not imply that there is no judge, God is judge.
“To conclude, the power that every individual gave the society when he entered into it, can
never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the
community, because without this there can be no community.”
“upon the forfeiture of their rulers, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the
society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in
themselves or place it in a new form, or new hands, as they think good.”
Rousseau (1712-1778)
Book
The Social Contract
Justice
“Force does not create right, and we are only obliged to obey legitimate powers”. All justice
comes from God, but he cannot enforce that on earth, if he could we didn’t need a
government. Laws are made by the General Will.
Nature
Rousseau preferred the natural man to the so-called civilised man, because the latter has been
corrupted by the improving arts and sciences.
Nature destined man to live a healthy, simple life and to satisfy his essential needs (“foods, a
female, and sleep”). Reflection is contrary to nature, and a thinking man, says Rousseau, is “a
depraved animal”. In the state of nature, man was driven by two sentiments, self-interest and
pity, and having no moral obligations with others, he could not be “good or bad, virtuous or
vicious”. He opposes to Hobbes’ view: man’s sense of compassion is the original sentiment
form which all later virtues flow. Reason and thinking come with civilisation, and isolates
man from his fellows, whereas compassion unites them.
Inequality
Rousseau distinguished two kinds of inequality: natural, e.g. age and the qualities of mind
and soul; and moral or political inequality, which owes its existence to social institutions and
consists in privileges of wealth, honour and power. The latter is much greater than the former.
Liberty
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”.
Rousseau distinguishes two types of liberty. According to Rousseau, man appears to have
liberty in the state of nature, but actually he is a slave of his own appetites. In the Social
Contract, man looses this natural liberty, but he gets civil liberty instead, which is limited by
the General Will. In civil society man achieves moral liberty, which consists of obeying the
laws that every person has helped to make, and this makes him master of himself. It is better
to live in a civil state than in a state of nature.
Government
The rich set up a government for the maintenance of peace, and they employed the forces of
the poor by promising them that they would be protected and whereas the possessions of the
rich would be safeguarded. The poor were tricked into this agreement by a false dilemma, and
natural liberty was destroyed.
According to Rousseau you should not and even cannot transfer your sovereignty to
representatives, because the sovereignty of the people is indivisible and inalienable.
Legislator is the people and no one else, to connect state and sovereign, a minister is chosen.
Government is an intermediate body between state and sovereign, to secure their mutual
correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both
civil and political. Body is called prince and consists of magistrates/kings.
Sovereignty of the people.
Society
Man in society, or civilised man, has developed varied and unhealthy habits of eating and
sleeping, and his mental and physical exhaustion is the result of the pains, anxieties and
torments of civilised living. Civilisation is thus a hopeless race to discover remedies for the
evils it produces. The newborn society led to a “horrible state of war”.
State
The Civil State is a state in which the Social Contract is executed, in other words, everyone
submits himself to the General Will, which resides in the heart of every person. The General
Will considers only the common interest, whereas the will of all is just the sum of particular
wills; therefore it takes private interest into account. It is better to live in a civil state than in a
state of nature.
Small state is better than a large one. Organic theory of the state (Plato, Aristotle), not state as
instrument (Hobbes, Locke).
Slavery
According to Rousseau there is no right to slavery at all, because it’s not legitimate,
meaningless and absurd. If a man removes all liberty, so he alienates himself, he removes all
morality as well.
Extra
Rousseau detests philosophers, because they destroy “all that men hold sacred”.
Rousseau
Slavery
Conventions are the basis of all legal authority among men. Grotius says that slavery
is when a man alienates himself and makes himself a slave, this can be the same for
a people and then they become slaves to a king. Rousseau says alienating is selling
yourself. But no one would voluntary give his own life up to be a slave, let alone a
complete people. Also children are born free and no one has the right to make them
slaves, they can decide for their own.
If a man removes all liberty, so he alienates himself, he removes all morality as well.
According to Grotius again, slaves can also be made by means of war, the victor can
kill the losing people, and the people can prevent that by becoming slaves.
War cannot be in a state of nature and not in a social state. War is a relation by
states in which one state tries to destroy another.
No one has the right to kill, nor enslave an enemy. Enslaving the enemy is also killing
him, but then make a profit out of the kill. According to Rousseau there is no right to
slavery at all, because it’s not legitimate, meaningless and absurd.
The sovereign
The Sovereign is all the people that have committed themselves to the social
contract. The Sovereign always acts in the general will and shall never hurt the
general will. If anyone does not want to obey the general will, he is compelled to do
so by the whole body. He is made free, which I thought means as much as kicked out
of the community so that he cannot become a tyrant.
Law
All justice comes from God, but he cannot enforce that on earth, if he could we didn’t
need a government. “Conventions and laws are needed to join rights to duties and
refer justice to its object.” In contrast to the state of nature are in the state of society
all rights fixed.
“But when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it’s considering only itself;
and if a relation is then formed it’s between two aspects of the entire object, without
there being any division of the whole. In that case the matter about which the decree
is made is, like the decreeing will, general. This act is what I call law.”
The law can have privileges, but not to specific people/objects. A state governed by
law is called Republic. Laws are made by the general will. Public enlightenment leads
to the union of understanding and will in the social body: the parts are made to work
exactly together, and the whole is raised to its highest power. This makes a legislator
necessary.
The legislator
The legislator cannot be same person who drew up the laws. The perfect legislator is
a representative of God, standing in direct connection with God. But this is
impossible, because there is no such a man.
The people
Small state is better than a large one: difficult administration, difficult to check
whether laws are obeyed, people don’t feel bonded with their rulers, laws cannot be
the same for all areas due to geographical, cultural differences. State is governed by
clerks. Big states can be good, so that the weak still have a chance. Ruler has to find
middle. Expansion can be necessary, but can also be fatal for a state.
Government in general
Legislator is the people and no one else, to connect state and sovereign, a minister is
appointed/chosen. Government is an intermediate body between state and
sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the
laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. Body is called prince and
consists of magistrates/kings.
The larger the state, the less liberty because your vote counts less. The bigger the
state, the bigger the chance the government gets perverted. Never sacrifice people
to government, can sacrifice government to people.
Democracy
Real democracy has never existed and will never exist, impossible to let a few be
governed by many. Democracies are very likely to be involved in civil wars and
intestine agitations. Where there a people of gods, their government would be
democratic. So a perfect government is not for men.
Voting
Voting has to extremes, total scattering, everyone disagrees, or total unanimity. Then
people don’t care and just vote something. Both are bad. There is one law that needs
total consent, which is the social compact. If you as a minority disagree with that
compact you are just excluded. Majority binds the rest. The constant will is the
general will. You agree in that a majority vote overrules the minority. The minority is
always wrong. When a fast decision is needed, a majority of only one vote is enough.
But in a grave and important matter the vote has to be close to unanimity.
I hope this summary is useful to you. I just summarised all the chapters.
Good luck studying!!
Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Book
Democracy in America
Justice
“A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its
greatness and beauty”.
Democracy
Democracy is inevitable, with America as model, there was a world revolution going on in
Tocqueville’s time and the French revolution was thus not an event but a process. Democracy
would thus inevitably arrive, but it could be “with order and morality”, or “an undisciplined
and depraved democracy”. Tocqueville’s intellectual acceptance of democracy was because it
is irresistible, to oppose it with hatred would therefore be futile, and he was sceptical enough
to tolerate it without embracing it. His attitude towards democracy was hesitant, fearful and
ambivalent, but he was willing to give it a fair chance.
Mixed government does not exist: one form is always predominant, according to Tocqueville.
Democratic despotism
“Tyranny of the majority” is different from one-man or class tyranny: “it would be more
extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them”. A particular kind
of this despotism is the power of public opinion to suppress unpopular views, this would be a
“quiet and gentle” form of terror, which doesn’t destroy but prevents and which makes the
people a flock of timid animals.
Equality
In the U.S. there is general equality of conditions, a “fundamental fact”, beyond political
equality, influencing civil society, morality and ethics. This equality could endanger liberty,
however, it depends on men themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to
positive or negative consequences.
The discrepancy between political equality and economical inequality would not be
indefinitely accepted by the people: the next revolution would be about economical
differences.
Liberty
The problem Tocqueville saw in democracy was the question of reconciling individuality and
liberty with democratic equality. In a democracy, there is a bigger threat to liberty, because
whereas a king only has physical power: it controls the actions without subduing the will, the
majority has physical and moral power: it acts upon the will as well as on the actions of men.
Society
Tocqueville’s main focus regarding the tyranny of the majority was the democratic despotism
in society rather than of government. Such despotism was the result of too much agreement in
society. This problem of the tyranny of the public opinion is very hard to solve, because it
works mentally and not through governmental ways. Tocqueville hoped to find the solution in
the education of man, so he can attain independence of character and rational knowledge.
However, he was never sure that the mass could achieve this; he was realistic about it.
Aristocracy of manufacturers
Democracy is favourable to the growth of industry for two reasons: 1 emphasis on
materialistic welfare for all, so demand for goods is constantly increasing, 2 equality of
opportunity encourages talent. However, mass production has serious social effects, because
“in proportion as the workman improves, the man degrades”. The employer resembles more
the administrator of a vast empire, and the worker becomes more and more a brute. Between
worker and employer there are vast relations, but “no real partnership”. If there will be again a
permanent inequality of conditions, the manufacturing aristocracy will be the channel in
which it enters.
Rousseau.
Equality, direct democracy so that more than the will of all (sum of all wills, taking into
account private interest) is nto the only thing that is considered but the General will
(realization of each individual of the common good,which is best for him as well) is
asserted and kept. This means that the individual would submit himself, denying its
natural liberty (slave of appetites) and achieving moral liberty (beyonf civil liberty).
Social contract of the people, no sovergeing. Only small states then, yes.
INTRO
If the Age of Reason ended, politically, in the Age of Revolution, the fault was not that of
philosophers and publicists but of the traditional forces that, by stubbornly resisting mild
reform, made radical revolution inevitable.
There was room for feelings and emotion in this age of rationalism, but they were
subordinated to the primacy of reason and stylized in form and expression. The first to atteck,
not this or that idea or philosophy, but the very foundations of traditional civilization, had to
be someone who was not a part of it: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
Rousseau is the first modern writer on politics who was of the people. At sixteen he ran away
from Geneva, and for the remainder of his life could claim no permanent abode anywhere.
Rousseau saw much of the Continent through the eyes of a penniless, and at times hunted,
vagabond, who did not always know where his next meal would come from and where he
would sleep. Yet his personality opened for him the doors of the best salons in Paris,
where he met leading Encyclopedists as well as influential women, with several of whom he
maintained close ties of friendship. But he never bacame, nor did he wish to become, a part of
the fashionable set of Paris.
In 1749 the Academy of Dijon announced a prize for the best essay on the question: “Has the
progress of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morality?” He set to work
feverishly on the essay and submitted it to the Academy. He got the first prize and it was
published in 1751 under the title A discourse on the moral effects of the arts and sciences.
The much vaunted politeness, the glory of civilized refinement, is for Rousseau but a
“uniform and perfidious veil” under which he sees “jealousy, suspicion, fear, coolness,
reserve, hate and fraud.”
Finally, Rousseau makes the charge that is as timely today as in 1749. “We have phisicists,
geometricians, chemists, astronomers, poets, musicians, and painters in plenty; but we have
no longer a citizen among us”.
In his second essay (that did not win the first prize but is much more important and
influential), Rousseau distinguishes two kinds of inequality.
1. Natural inequality: consists of differences of age, health, bodily strength, and the
qualities of mind and soul.
2. Political inequality: ows its existance to social intstitutions and consists in priveleges
of wealth, honor, and power.
Rousseau finds that natural inequalities are not substantial, that the problem of
inequality areises with the formation of society.
Civilization is thus a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces. The man of
nature knows less medicine than civilized man, but the latter brings upon himself more
diseases than medicine can cure. Reflection is contrary to nature, and a thinking man,
Rousseau says, is “a depraved animal”.
Rousseau now announces the idea that human understanding is not the sole domain of
reason but is “greatly indebted to passions”. In the state of nature, man was guided by two
sentiments: self-interest and pity, and having no moral obligations with others, he could
not be “good or bad, virtuous or vicious”. Rousseau specifically rejects Hobbes’ view of the
state of nature in which man, not knowing goodness, must therefore be wicked. Uncivilized
man is always “foolishly ready to obey the first proltings of humanity. It is the mob and the
market-women who part the combatants, and hinder gentle-folks from cutting one another-s
throats.
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is
mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”
The natural voice of compassion was stilled by the usurpations of the rich and the robberies of
the poor, and the newborn society thus led to a “horrible state of war”. The rich then devised a
plan by which they would better enjoy their power and possession without the threat of
constant war.
1st step: to obtain agreement among the rich themselves to set up a system of law and
government for the maintenance of peace.
2nd step: (the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man) employ the forces of the
poor for the creation of government, under which all would be protected and their possessions
safeguarded.
On the injustices of contemporary France: “it is plainly contrary to the laws of nature,
however defined, that children shold command old men, fools wise men, and that the
privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in
want of the bare necessities of life”
The main concern of The Social Contract is the central issue of all political speculation:
political obligation. “The problem” Rousseau says “is to find a form of association which will
defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and
in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free
as before: Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Rousseau’s conception of man’s life in the state of nature is not quitre so gloomy as that of
Hobbes, nor as optimistic as that of Locke. But the social contract consists in “the total
alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community”. But
whereas Hobbes’ subject is completely submissive to his sovereign, Rousseau reflects this
kind of social peace without liberty.
In Rousseau’s social contract man does not surrender completely to a sovereign ruler, but each
man gives himself to all, and therefore gives himself to nobody in particular: “As there is no
associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he
gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of
what he has.”
In the state of nature, Rousseau now says, man is guided by instinct only, whereas in
society he is inspired by justice and morality. Man loses through the social contract his
natural liberty and an unlimited right ot everything he can lay his hands on, but he gains
civil liberty and property rights in all he posesses. The liberty of the state of nature is no
true liberty, because it is merely enslavement to uncontrolled appetites. By contrast,
moral liberty, which man acquires solely in the civil state, makes him master of himself,
because “obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.” These 3 forms of
liberty progress from the lower to the higher.
Natural liberty is devoid of any reflective or rational elements, and its boundary – constantly
shifting – is simply the strength of the individual to assert himself.
Civil liberty has a firmer and more rational foundation – the laws and rules of the political
community which teremine what each member may and may not do in relation to other
members.
Moral liberty is the only type of freedom in which the individual is free in relation to
himself.
In civil society, the alternative is between obeying laws in the making of which the citizens
have not participated, and obeying laws in which we ourselves have participated in making. In
the first case, we obey the will of others, which makes us morally unfree. In the second case
we obey the will of ourselves, which condition alone can make us free. If there has to be law –
and where there is society, there must be law – self-imposed law is thsu the closest
approxiamtion to freedom that man can attain in civil society. “By what incoceivable art
has a means been found of making men free by making them subject?” Thses wonders are the
work of law. It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty”.
Rousseay’s concept of inalienable and indivisible sovereignty does not permit the people to
transfer their legislative function, the supreme authority in the state. As to the executive and
judicial functions, Rousseau realizes that they have to be exercised by special organs of
government, but they are completely subordinated to the sovereign people, and ther eis no
hint or suggestion of separation, or balance, of powers.
The state is not only the group with a General Will; particular societies and associations, too,
have a General Will in relation to their members, though in relation to the state their will is
particular, because the General Will of the state is the most comprehensive of all, embracing
all members of the community. The General Will, therefore, is not something that can be
legislated against the people from the outside, but is a moral attitude in the heart of the
citizens, and “nothing can take the place of marality in the maintenance of government.”
The Will of All must not be confused with the General Will: “The latter considers only the
common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than
a sum of particular wills.” The generality of the will is not so much a matter of numbers
as of intrinsic quality and goodness. The peple always will be good, but they do not always
understand it, particularly when factions make it difficult for the independent citizen to pursue
the common good.
Nor can the Teneral Will be represented, because representative assemblies tend to
develop particular interests of their own, forgetting those of the community.Rousseau
recognizes that in direct popular government unanimity is, in practice, impossible, and that
the vote of the majority binds a the minority.
The question of how the minority can be free and yet be bound to obey the majority is
rejected by Rousseau as wrongly put: when a citizen objects to a proposed law in the
popular assembly and finds himself in a minority, he does not thereby lose his freedom, for
his minority vote merely proves that he did not recognize the General Will, rather than that
the majority as such, ahs a right ot rule over him.
Rousseau cautiously adds that this conception of freedom of the individual “presupposes,
indeed, that all the qualities of the General Will still reside in the majority: when they cease to
do so, whatever side a man may take, liberty is no longer possible.” Obeying the General
Will is thus the expression of the moral freedom of the individual, and if the refuses to
obey, he may be compelled to do so: “This means nothing less than that he will be forced to
be free.”
Here Rousseau revives his basic distinction between the apparent liberty of man in the
state of nature, which actually is enslavement to selfish appetites, and his moral liberty
in civil society, which consists in obeying laws, general in scope and origin, which he as a
member of the body politic has helped to make.
The phrase “forcing man to be free” is obviously contradictory. The contradiction, however,
becomes less obvious and simple if we recall that Rousseau distinguishes civil liberty from
mroal liberty, and that moral liberty can be attained only throught the General Will
creating laws which come from all, apply to all, and aim at the general good. Once the
state is set up, “residence constituted consent; to dwell in its territory is to submit to its
sovereignty”.
The citizen of the free state cannot give his consent selectively to one law but not to another:
“The citizen gives his consent to all the laws, including those which are passed in spite of his
opposition, and even those which punish him when he dares to break any of them”. By taking
part in the process on a free and equal basis with all other citizens, he obliges himself in
advance to obey the law even if he has voted against it, since “the vote of the majority
always binds the rest”.
In Rousseau’s sense of moral liberty means no more but also no less than obeying the laws
one has participated in creating, even if voting against them. What Rousseau thus tries to
convey in the provocative and attention-catching phrase of forcing man to be free if he
disobeys the General Will is the notion that one cannot have it both ways, that the very
concept of civil society implies the abandonment of natural liberty, in which one’s freedom is
limited only by his strength. Moral liberty implies giving up natural liberty
The General Will is more than pure will, i.e. in fact it is “in each individual a pure act of
understanding, which reasons while the passions are silent on what a man may demand of
his neighbor and on what his neighbor has a right to demand of him.
He attributes to the people inalienable soveregnty, but a moral obligation is attached to this
precious possession: each citizen must will the general good, because popular sovereignty
means the General Will, and self-government is therefore not mere submission to the
common good, but its active cultivation.
The master conception of The Social Contract – is a community of free men living in a small
state in which democracy can be practiced directly by the people, a community of men who
see in freedom not only an invitation to personal enjoyment and advantage but also shared
responsibility for the welfare of the whole.
Rousseau is the first modern writer to attempt, not always successfullly, to synthesize good
government with self-government in the key concept of the General Will: the realization of
what is best for the community is not enough; it must also be willed by the community.
Rousseau also saw more clearly than the conventional liberal doctrinaries that the end of
government is not confined to the protection of the individual liberty but also includes
equality; because “liberty cannot exist without it”.
No citizen “shall evern be wealthy even to buy another, and none poor enough to be force to
sell himself:. Rousseau realizes that in practice it is difficult to maintain the ideal of equitable
distribution of property, but it “is precisely because the force of circumstances tends
continually to destroy equality that the force of legislation should always tend to its
maintenance.
Rousseau clearly recognized property as a form of private domination that had to be kept
under control by the General Will, the public interst of the community. Rousseau’s
theory of equitable distribution of property was, however, hardly socialist in the modern
sense of the term, because he was noth thinking of an industrialized society, in which the
problem of socialized property chiefly arises, but of communities of small peasants and
craftsmen (as in Switzerland), in which individual economic independence and an
approximation to the ideal of equal property are feasible.
Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Book
Democracy in America
Justice
“A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its
greatness and beauty”.
Democracy
Democracy is inevitable, with America as model, there was a world revolution going on in
Tocqueville’s time and the French revolution was thus not an event but a process. Democracy
would thus inevitably arrive, but it could be “with order and morality”, or “an undisciplined
and depraved democracy”. Tocqueville’s intellectual acceptance of democracy was because it
is irresistible, to oppose it with hatred would therefore be futile, and he was sceptical enough
to tolerate it without embracing it. His attitude towards democracy was hesitant, fearful and
ambivalent, but he was willing to give it a fair chance.
Mixed government does not exist: one form is always predominant, according to Tocqueville.
Democratic despotism
“Tyranny of the majority” is different from one-man or class tyranny: “it would be more
extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them”. A particular kind
of this despotism is the power of public opinion to suppress unpopular views, this would be a
“quiet and gentle” form of terror, which doesn’t destroy but prevents and which makes the
people a flock of timid animals.
Equality
In the U.S. there is general equality of conditions, a “fundamental fact”, beyond political
equality, influencing civil society, morality and ethics. This equality could endanger liberty,
however, it depends on men themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to
positive or negative consequences.
The discrepancy between political equality and economical inequality would not be
indefinitely accepted by the people: the next revolution would be about economical
differences.
Liberty
The problem Tocqueville saw in democracy was the question of reconciling individuality and
liberty with democratic equality. In a democracy, there is a bigger threat to liberty, because
whereas a king only has physical power: it controls the actions without subduing the will, the
majority has physical and moral power: it acts upon the will as well as on the actions of men.
Society
Tocqueville’s main focus regarding the tyranny of the majority was the democratic despotism
in society rather than of government. Such despotism was the result of too much agreement in
society. This problem of the tyranny of the public opinion is very hard to solve, because it
works mentally and not through governmental ways. Tocqueville hoped to find the solution in
the education of man, so he can attain independence of character and rational knowledge.
However, he was never sure that the mass could achieve this; he was realistic about it.
Aristocracy of manufacturers
Democracy is favourable to the growth of industry for two reasons: 1 emphasis on
materialistic welfare for all, so demand for goods is constantly increasing, 2 equality of
opportunity encourages talent. However, mass production has serious social effects, because
“in proportion as the workman improves, the man degrades”. The employer resembles more
the administrator of a vast empire, and the worker becomes more and more a brute. Between
worker and employer there are vast relations, but “no real partnership”. If there will be again a
permanent inequality of conditions, the manufacturing aristocracy will be the channel in
which it enters.
Tocqueville.
INTRO
Defenders of democracy often saw in it a kind of paradise within the reach of man, whereas
its opponents predicted that, if it were ever allowed to exist long enough, it would end in the
destruction of society and the moral values that support it.
The first major democracy in the modern world is that of the United States; only after its
establishment and success could the issue of democracy be brought down from the clouds of
subjunctive and hypothetical speculation to the firm ground of positive and empirical
observation. Democracy was the “irresistible” new form of society and government, and the
United States was the world’s key laboratory of democracy. The first to notice it was Alexis
de Tocqueville (1805-1859).
Tocqueville studied the law -> embarks on a judicial career -> was a member of the Chamber
of Deputies, where he voted slightly Left of Center, with the constituional opposition.-> 1849:
he becomes Foreign Minister for a few months.
He broke new ground by emphasizing the elements of continuity in the French Revolution
rather than those of suedden change: “The despot fell; but eh most substantional portion of his
work remained; his administrative system survived his government.”
His ability to forecast the future is illustrated by the statement that the time would come when
North America would be inhabited by one hundred and fifty million people, and that Russia
and the United States would each “sway the destinies of half the globe.”
Tocqueville understood that the American and French revolutions, like the upheavals in
other parts of Europe and the Americas, were not isolated events but parts of a world
revolution.
His realization that the age of government by privilege was gone did not lead him to
embrace democracy unquestioningly and ungesitatingly. The real alternative was no
longer between aristocracy and democracy, he felt. It was between “democracy without poetry
and elevation indeed, but with order and morality, and an undisciplined and depraved
democracy, subject to sudden frenzies, or to a yoke heavier than any that has galled mankind
since the fall of the Roma Embpire”.
Approaching the issue of equality from an institutional rahter than from a purely
ideological viewpoint, tocqueville found that the process of leveling and equalizing had
been going on in Europe for seven hundred years, and that “absolute kings were the most
efficient levellers of ranks among their subjects”.
Tocqueville pointed out that democracy, by the very fact of solving the issue of equality,
created new problems of iberty that had not hitherto existed.
Tocqueville saw that the threat to liberty is potentially more real and menacing in a
democracy than in a monarchy or an aristocracy: “The authority of a king is purely physical,
and it controls the actions of the subject without sugcuing his private will; but the majority
possesse a power which is physical and moral at the same time; it acts upon the will as well as
upon the actions of men, and it represses not only all contest, but all controversy”.
One kind of despotism in a democracy is the power of public opinion to suppress unpoipular
views. Nothing disturbed Tocqueville more in his study of democracy than the “quiet and
gentle” kind of terror and intimidation that does not destroy but prevents, existence; that
does not tyrannize, but compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies people “till each
nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which
the government is the shepherd”.
His main interest – and in this he broke new ground – was in democratic despotism of
society rather than of government. Such despotism was the result of too much agreement
in society about basic moral issues, and not of too much social conflict, as the classical
liberals from Locke to Madison had thought.
Institutional devices would not suffice, since the oppression of the individual by public
opinion was not institutional but mental, making itself felt through subtle social pressure
rather than through overt acts of government. Moreover, a major difficulty in coping with the
tyranny of public opinion was the fact that many individuals cheerfully submitted to that
tyranny because they sincerely believed that public opinion was right. Tocqueville in the end
pins his hope on the education of man, so he can attain independence of character and
rational knowledge, both of which will make him understand the invisible chains of the
tyranny of society over his mind and conduct.
“The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal:
but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to
servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or to wretchedness.”
Tocqueville’s intellectual acceptance of democracy was rooted in two feelings: first, that it is
irresistible, and that to oppose it with blind, sterile hatred would therefore be futile; second,
he was skeptical enough to tolerate democracy without embracing it passionately.
While economically efficient, mass production has serious social effects because “in
proportion as the workamn improves, the man is degraded”. The more the worker
concentrates his effort and intelligence on a single detail, the more the employer has to
survey an extensive whole, so that htemind of the latter is broadened in proportion as that of
the former is narrowed.
Differences between the old landed and the new manufacturing aristocracy. In the first, the tie
between the landlord and his men was one of shared experience rather than of weekly pay
checks.
But Tocqueville did not think that the discrepancy between political equality and economic
inequality would be indefinitely accepted by a democratic people. He saw that the first
phase of the democratic world revolution, political in nature, would inevitably lead to a
second phase, which would be primarily social and economic.
He understood, with consummate clarity, the paradoxical relation between democarcy and
the Industrial Revolution: on the one hand, democracy favors the growth of an industrial
economy with its rising living standards for the people; and on the other hand, the process of
industricalization creates new problems of inequality which n the past have threatened the
foundation of democracy. The dilemma of democracy has been liberty or equality.
EXTRACT
I hold it to be an imious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a
right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the
will of the majority.
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which the majority has of
commanding, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of
mankind.
I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in the same government, so
as to the same time to maintain freedom, and really to oppose them to one another.
I am of opinion that some one social power must always be made to predominate over the
others; but I think that libverty is endangered when this power is checked by no obstacles
which may retard its course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.
No monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of society in his own hands, and
to conquer all opposition, with the energy of a majority, which is invested with the right
of making and of executing the laws. The authority of a king is purely physical, and it
controls the actions of the subject without subduing his private will; but the majority
possesses a power which is physical and moral at the same time; it acts upon the will as well
as upon the actions of men, and it represses not only all contest, but all controversy.
Freedom ahs appeared in the world at different times and under various forms; it has
not been exclusively bound to any social condition, and it is not confined to democracies.
Freedom cannot, therefore, form the distinguishing characteristic of democratic ages.
Equality is the distinguishing characteristic of the age they live in; that, of itself, is enough
to explain that they prefer it to all the rest.
Men therefore not only cling to equality because it is dear to them; they also adhere to it
because they think it will last for ever.
The evils which freedom sometimes brings with it are immediate; they are apparent to all, and
all are more or less affected by them. The evils which extreme equality may produce are more
or less affected by them. The evils which extreme equality may produce are slowly
disclosed; they creep gradually into the social frame; they are only seen at intervals, and
at the moment at which they become most violent, habit already causes them to be no
longer felt.
The advantages which freedom brings are only shown by length of time; and it is always easy
to mistake the cause in which they originate. The advantages of equality are instantaneous,
and they may constantly be traced from their source.
Democracy is favourable to the growth of manufactures, and it increases wihtout limit the
numbers of the manufacturing classes.
When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he
ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but at the same time he loses the general
faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. He very day becomes more adroit
and less industrious; so that is may be said of him, that in proportion as the workman
improves, the man is degraded.
Wealthy and educated men come forward to embark in manufactures which were heretofore
abandoned to poor or ignorant handicraftsmen. The magnitude of the efforts required, and the
importance of the reults to be obtained, attract them. Thus at the very time at which the
science of manufactures lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters.
Hence it would appear, on searching to the bottom, that aristocracy should naturally
spring out of the bosom of democracy.
For myself, I am so far from urging as a reproach to the principle of equality that it renders
men untractable, that his very circumstance principally calls forth my approbation. I admire
to see how it deposits in the mind and heart of man the dim conception and instinctive
love of political independence, thus preparing the remedy for the evil which it
engenders: it is on this very account that I am attached to it. So it creates poison and
antidote?
Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they
always love that power itself.
Conclusion: the principle of equality suggests to men the notion of a sole, uniform, and
strong government: the principle of equality imparts to them a taste for it.
If despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it might
assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade
men without tormenting them.
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The
first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of en all equal and alike,
incessantly endeavouring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their
lives. Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself
alone to secure their graticiations, ad watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute,
regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if like that
authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to
keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice,
provided they think of nothing but rejoicing.
It circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of
himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed
men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules, minute and
uniform, through which trhe most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot
penetrate, to rise above the crowd. BOURDIEU The will of man is not shattered, but softened,
bent and guided.
Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it
compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be
nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the
shepherd.
Our contemporaries devise a sole, tutelary, and all-pwerful form of government, but elected
by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular
sovereignty. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that
it is not a person or a class of personss, but the people at large that hold the end of his
chain.
By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their
master, and then relapse into it again.
Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day, and is felt by the whole community
indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it rosses them at every turn till they
are led to surrender the exercise of their will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their
character enervated; whereas that obedience, which is exacted on a few important but rare
occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals, and throws the burden of it upon a small
number of men.
The object is not to reatin the peculiar advantages which the inequality of cinditions bestows
upon mankind, but to secure the new benefits which equality may supply.
I cling with a firmer hold to the belief, that for democratic nations to be virtuous and
prosperous they require but to will it.
It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond which he cannot pass; but
within the wide verge of that circle he si powerful and free: as it is with man so with
communities.
Mill (1806-1873)
Book
On Liberty, Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women (should be equal)
Liberty
As long as an action does not hurt anyone else, it should not be prohibited: that is
infringement upon your liberty. If someone wants to hurt himself, you may explain why you
think that is wrong but should not actually try to stop him.
Furthermore, he wanted absolute freedom of speech, because ideas cannot hurt people, only
actions can. Therefore, everyone should be allowed to say whatever he wants. Freedom of
opinion is valuable for two reasons: 1 the common idea can be wrong and then it can be
corrected by the other opinion 2 even if your idea is right, it is good to realise why it is right
and this is done by refuting the other opinion. Even if something is believed to be
true, it must be constantly reviewed for its own vitality and survival. The
truth is always a work in process, never one complete thing/things. This
applies to social and governmental control.
Tyranny of the majority
This is the concept that in a democratic state the majority of people can impose its will on a
minority. Mill believes this behaviour is "tyrannical" when it violates a claim that the minority
has as a member of society.
Government
Governments should be careful not to turn their people into "docile instruments" because they
will find that they can get very little accomplished with "small men". Society will stagnate
under a government, which gives itself total control.
Lassez faire economy.
Property
Private property should not be abolished, but improved upon.
Consequentialism
Mill considers the result of an act more important than the intention behind it.
Social Contract
This reflects the idea that society is something that people either explicitly or implicitly
agreed to be part of. Social contract theory was first formulated by Rousseau in The Social
Contract, and defines rights as those things that people would have agreed to have protected
by society, and duties as those things people would have agreed to take on as obligations, had
they been present at the formation of the state.
Important terms/ideas:
Liberty - For Mill, liberty encompasses both civil and social liberty, which he defines as "the
nature and limits of the power of which can be legitimately exercised by society over the
individual." Mill argues that society can only exert authority over behavior that harms other
people, anything else is an infringement upon individual freedom.
Tyranny of the majority - This is the concept that in a democratic state the majority of
people can impose its will on a minority. Mill believes this behavior is "tyrannical" when it
violates a claim that the minority has as a member of society.
Social Contract - This reflects the idea that society is something that people either explicitly
or implicitly agreed to be part of. Social contract theory was first formulated by Rousseau in
The Social Contract, and defines rights as those things that people would have agreed to have
protected by society, and duties as those things people would have agreed to take on as
obligations, had they been present at the formation of the state.
Greatest Happiness Prinicple- A quasi-mathematical method of determining the best
deicision to make. The effect (both positive and negative) of a particular action is weighed
against the effect of another and the one which causes the most happiness for the effected
population. Note that Mill does not consider all happiness to be equal. Higher pleasures
(intellectual and spiritual) are carry more weight than do lower (sensual) pleasures.
Mill's main points:
In general:
The theory which Mill followed is known as Utilitarianism. It comes under the general
heading of consequentialism (the area of ethics which emphasizes results rather than the
intention behind an act). Mill justifies the value of liberty through a Utilitarian approach. His
essay tries to show the positive effects of liberty on all people and on society as a whole. In
particular, Mill links liberty to the ability to progress and to avoid social stagnation. Liberty of
opinion is valuable for two main reasons. First, the unpopular opinion may be right. Second, if
the opinion is wrong, refuting it will allow people to better understand their own opinions.
Liberty of action is desirable for parallel reasons. The nonconformist may be correct, or she
may have a way of life that best suits her needs, if not anybody else's. Additionally, these
nonconformists challenge social complacency, and keep society from stagnating. All people
should be allowed to do or believe whatever they want, as long as it does not have any major,
negative impacts on other people. This applies to social as well as governmental control. If
someone chooses to harm him/herself, that is their perogative. You may explain why you
think that this is not a good idea, but you cannot try to actually stop them from doing so. This
is an restriction of their liberty. Since ideas cannot hurt anybody (unless they are acted upon)
scientific, moral, theological, etc. ideas may not be restricted in any way. Those who attmpt to
stifle other people's opinions end up more harmed than those they are trying to stifle because
they do not allow themselves to be exposed to new ideas. Even if something is believed to be
true, it must be constantly reviewed for its own vitality and survival. The truth is always a
work in process, never one complete thing/things.
On government control:
Governments should be careful not to turn their people into "docile instruments" because they
will find that they can get very little accomplished with "small men". Society will stagnate
under a government which gives itself total control. (see above)
On property:
Private property should not be abolished, but improved upon. It should be within the grasp of
all people. The evils of capitalism are actually decreasing rather than increasing, although
they are quite significant at this point [1859].
Hegel (1770-1831)
Book
Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of History
History
According to Hegel, there is an end of history. Progress is made by war between nations. The
goal of history will be achieved when the people have reached the Idea of the world. He saw
history as the unfolding of God’s purpose of the world, and the state as a means to reach the
divine Idea of the world.
Justice
Society should not be ruled by the thoughtless mob, but by those who know what absolute
justice is.
Liberty
Hegel thought that liberty can be found only by voluntarily submitting to the law; “in duty the
individual finds his liberty”. According to Hegel, society has its necessities, just like nature.
Laws in society are a necessity, and when “the subjective will of man submits to laws, the
contradiction between Liberty and Necessity vanishes”. For liberals, on the contrary, liberty is
being free to make your own choices, even if the choices you make are stupid ones. Hegel
thinks this is irrational: people should simply choose the best option, in other words; the
formation of the will must be rational.
When we say: ‘We want to be free,’ than we mean: ‘We want abstract freedom,’ or the
freedom to do as we please. Every institution and organ of the state passes as a restriction to
that freedom. Thus duty is not a restriction on freedom, but only on abstract freedom, or
unfreedom. Duty is the attaining of our essence, the winning of positive freedom. To define
freedom of the press as freedom to say and to write whatever we please, is parallel to the first
assertion of freedom, it is absurd.
Concrete freedom consists in this: that personal individuality and its interests not only achieve
their complete development and recognition for their right, but will also pass over of their
own accord into the interest of the universal, and they will know and will the universal. Hegel
defines the state as the “realisation of freedom”.
Nature
Nature is inherently rational; that is commonly accepted. Hegel rejects revolution, just as, he
thought, there is no revolution in nature. Nature has its necessities.
Government
If people do not act rational, the monarch must keep these people in control. Hegel rejects
revolution, just as he thought there is no revolution in nature.
Hegel rejects democracy as form of government. Society should not be ruled by the
thoughtless mob, but by those who know what absolute justice is, therefore he is in favour of
monarchy. The advantage of monarchical government is that leadership is always clearly
present in it. He advocates the corporate organisation of the state: an individual should be
politically active only as member of a social group or class, and not just as citizen. The
member of the state is a member of such a group, and it is only through such a group that his
interests are considered. The constitution should not be regarded as something being made,
even if it comes to being in time. It must be treated as something existent in and by itself, as
divine.
In a completely organised state, the monarch only has to take the formal decision, because the
objective aspect belongs to law alone.
State
Hegel defines the state as the “realisation of freedom”. Hegel saw the state as God’s
instrument for moving the world: the state is ‘the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth’. The
individual only has moral value because he is part of the state.
The state is mind on earth and consciously realising itself there. We should desire to have in
the state nothing except what is an expression of rationality. As high as mind stands above
nature, so high does the state stand above physical life. Man must therefore venerate the state
as a secular deity.
Virtue
Virtue is the ethical order reflected in the individual character.
EXTRA
There are problems with Hegel's philosophy, however. Possibly the most offensive to a
modern reader is the apparent racism of Hegel's historical analysis. One of many examples of
this racism / ethnocentrism can be found in the Philosophy of History: "The inferiority of [the
Native Americans] in all respects, even in regard to size, is very manifest...[they are] still
abiding in their natural condition of rudeness and barbarism" (Hegel 81). Another example:
"The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed
state" (Hegel 93). Of course, we must understand that Hegel was interpreting "barbaric"
peoples as the antithesis of Europeans; their negative existence was necessary in order to
create a clash of cultures which would result in a new nation which had a fuller understanding
of the "plan of Providence." All the same, it is easy to see why many people have criticized
Hegel for his outright ethnocentrism and racism.
Hegel
History shows God’s purpose in the world. Each period brings humanity
closer to this Truth. The history of the world thus “is none other than the progress of
the consciousness of freedom” (→ “freedom is the sole Truth of Spirit”). In the end,
the world will reveal itself totally (it will become itself because it is reason).
Until that time, the opinion of people differs; they don’t know the Truth, but
each opinion represents a part of it. When a new opinion emerges, it sets the old
ones in context (new one = good, rest was backwards and primitive). The ‘temporary’
opinion is based on the Zeitgeist (the period a group of people lives in) and the
Volksgeist (the mentality of the place and group of people). These Zeitgeist and
Volksgeist are perceived by the people to be the right way to live; they perceive their
customs (Zitten) as absolute and good. The customs become a second nature → a
part of history in the body. They form part of civil society (for civil society see further
on).
Modernization is inevitable. To get there you need ‘the ruse of reason’, a
functional trick to move ahead in history. The Spirit does not make you understand
where you’re going, and the way in which you’re going is not where you will end up; it
is only about the progress. (Ex. Wars are fought for ‘freedom’ ‘ democracy’ etc, but
actually only to move forward in history)
The State is God’s instrument for moving the world. An individual only has
moral value because he is part of a state; the human moral purpose only can be
discovered in / through a community, namely through individual conformity with the
rules in an ethical society (=state).
Through reason the ‘earthly city’ is advancing towards the ‘City of God’. Thus,
Hegel’s idea of reason is an idealist conception: contrary to Augustine, the city of
God can be strived for and will be reached in the end.
Just as reason becomes actual in nature, so it becomes actual in the state.
The source of this reason is the world itself: it comes from God and God is the
world (not classical of Christian concept of God). Reason can be found in society
just as much as in nature → there are rational ‘laws’ in society.
Nature is the proper subject of investigation and the object of knowledge and
philosophy. Knowledge has to investigate in nature is its eternal harmony and
inherent rationality
Essay on “is Hegel in favour of democracy?” → main points (some overlap with the
above)
Hegel is in favour of a corporate organization of the state (individual should
be politically articulate only as a member of a social group/class, and not just as a
citizen qua citizen as in democracies). The advantage of a monarchical form of
government is that leadership is always clearly present in it (while in
democracy/aristocracy leaders only may rise to the top)
(Ex: English Reform Bill (p. 627): England behind Germany because lack of “great
sense of princes” +monarchical power weak/powerless against the “thoughtless
mob”, which was given too much influence > Reform Bill would amount to revolution,
not reform and thus, might threaten the stability of English political order.)
Democracy = the first step toward anarchy, because society requires a strong
monarch as a balancing element among contending economic and political interests.
Democratic theory denies that there is one individual or class who can view conflicts
of human values and interests impartially. Democrats therefore teach that societal
conflicts peacefully may be resolved through discussion, participation, and
persuasion: society means choice and alternatives, not submission and will.
Hegel disagrees: society is a man-made copy of nature with its laws of
necessity, when “the subjective will of man” submits to laws; the contradiction
between liberty and necessity vanishes (by contrast, the democratic tradition accepts
necessity in physical nature, but not in human relations → one may challenge validity
of any man-made law)
The constitution is the fundamental law of the state. The democratic idea is
the constitution as an instrument of government, a charter and compact consciously
framed for desired ends. Hegel disagrees: “constitution should be treated as
something simply existent in and by itself”.
Power is of the “higher justice of nature and truth” and therefore may forcibly
bring men and women under its sway, despite their inner convictions and theories.
Marx (1818-1883)
Book
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, The Communist Manifesto (with Engels)
History
Marx thought, like Hegel, that history has both a meaning and a goal, but for him this goal
would be achieved when a classless society was installed, leading to full human freedom.
According to Marx, social change and progress is attained by war between classes. The
historical process was dominated by class struggles, each time a higher phase, until the end of
history: a classless society, the destruction of capitalism. Marx’s thought were seen as a new
religion, although Marx himself was an atheist.
Capitalism
Marx thought that capitalism was exploitative (employers vs. employees), wasteful
(productive forces vs. productive relations), with too much emphasis on money, and
capitalism industrialism alienated workers from their nature, their work, the objects they
produce, their employers, their fellowmen and, most important, themselves. Under capitalism,
the worker does not work in order to fulfil himself as a person, for his work is “not voluntary
but imposed, forced labour”. It satisfies only the need of their employers, who exploit their
workers.
The capitalism system will inevitably fall, because it is digging its own grave.
Property
Marx regards property as a relation of man to things, not as a power relation between men.
However, such property without power can only exist under public ownership, whereas
private property is per definition a power relation. Public ownership of the means of the
production will lead to the administration of things: a condition in which property is no longer
related to power.
Government
The capitalism will probably be overthrown by revolution, although there are exceptions:
some countries will be able to achieve a communist system in a peaceful way. The communist
revolution will lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. Marx hoped
that in such a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat there would be different parties, all
united in the common goal of destroying the last remnants of capitalism, but differing on
minor issues.
Society
The laws of society follow an inexorable course, possessing scientific validity. In other words,
human reason can only understand the laws of the state or society, there can be no rational
control of creative change.
Society consists of a superstructure (politics, ideology, law, etc..) and economy (productive
forces and relations), The superstructure evolves out of the economy; Marx believed in the
primacy of economics over politics.
Work
Work is man’s most creative and noblest form of personal self-fulfilment. Work is the primary
necessity of life.
Influences
German philosophy (Hegel’s end of history), French revolutionary politics, English political
economy (property as relation of man to things), romanticism (alienation of the worker).
Extra
Marx criticised philosophers for interpreting society rather than actively trying to change it.
Men’s social existence determines their consciousness and not the other way around.
MARX
Marx and Competition
● Workers sink to a level of commodity, and are merely a product to capital. The
misery of the workers increases with the power and volume of the production.
This is the result of a competition between the entrepreneurs. In the end, the
competition will lead to an accumulation of the capital in the hands of a few.
● The whole society is divided into two classes: The property owners
(entrepreneurs) and property less workers ( proletariat)
● The political economy in this situation is motivated by the “war between the
greedy” or the competition for capital. Nevertheless this competition, freedom
of crafts, division of land en property are conceived only as accidental
consequences brought about by will and force.
● The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces. The more the
production increases in power and extent, the cheaper the worker becomes in
relation to the amount of goods he produces. In the bigger picture this means
that devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation to the increase
in value of the world of things
Objectification of labour
● The object which is produced by labour stands as a power independent of the
producer / worker. The more objects a worker produces, the fewer he can
possess and the more the worker falls under the domination of his product of
capital. Hence, the worker is dominated by his product and as the more he
produces of it, the less he will be indentified with it. Furthermore, the more the
worker burns out himself in work, the more powerful the world of objects
becomes which he creates in face of himself. The poorer will his inner life be,
and the lesser he will belong to himself. → Alienation
Alienation:
● Labour becomes an object and assumes an external existence, it is
independent of the producer, outside himself and alien to him. The product of
labour in the end, is standing opposed to him as an autonomous power or
hostile force.
Labour: labour cannot live without objects upon which it can be exercised. Labour
also provides means of existence, moreover, means of physical existence for the
worker himself. Thus: the more the worker appropriates the external world of
sensuous nature by his labour, the more he deprives himself of the means of
existence in 2 ways:
1. The sensuous external world becomes progressively less an object to
this labour
2. It becomes progressively less a means of existence in the direct sense
Hence, in both cases the worker becomes a slave of the object because it
provides the worker with work and means of subsistence.
Enforced labour / Slavery
● Enslavement rests on the fact that the worker can only maintain himself as a
physical subject as long as he is a worker (as it provides him means of
subsistence). He is only a worker because he is a physical subject, nothing
more than that is required to be a worker (easily replaceable by other
subjects)
● Alienation also appears in the process of production, within the productive
activity itself. The worker does not need special skills for his production activity
and only performs one simple action. Alienation occurs as following; work is
external, not a part of nature of the worker. The worker does not fulfill himself
in his work, but denies himself. Worker only feels at home during leisure time,
which is spare in this system.
● Forces labour is consequently not the satisfaction of the need of the worker,
but merely means of satisfying the consumer’s needs.
● Man feels free only in animal functions: eating, drinking, procreating, dwelling
and in personal adornment, In his human functions, the worker is reduced to
an animal.
Conclusion of acts of alienation of practical human activity:
● The relation of the worker to the product of labour is as an alien object which
dominates him. The relation of labour to the act of production within labour is
that the worker is not belonging to himself. (alienation)
● Nature is the inorganic body of man; man lives from nature, nature is his body.
Men is a part from nature.
● Because of the alienation of labour, nature is also alienated from man, and
hence man alienates from himselfs and from the species.
● Labour / life activity/ productive life, appear to man only as a satisfaction of a
need, i.e. the need to maintain the physical existence. Alienated labour
reverses the relation in men, because he is a self-conscious being he makes
his life activity his “being” as this is his only means for existence. Furthermore,
if each man is alienated from his species’ life means that each man is
alienated from others and alienated from human life. If work is torment to the
worker, it is the source of enjoyment and pleasure of another. That sufferings
of the worker provide another with the enjoyment of capital or a product.
● Every man regards other men according to the standards and relationships
which he finds himself placed as a worker.
● The alien being to whom the labour belongs, and the whose service labour is
devoted, and to whose enjoyment the product of labour goes is another
creature than the worker.
Capitalism works because in some way the worker has a relation with another who
does not work and is outside the work progress, it is independent of the other.
Private property:
● Product of alienated labour, and the product of the external relation of the
worker to nature and to himself. Furthermore, private property is derived from
the analysis of the concept of alienated labour, alienated man, and alienated
life.
● The nature of private property is resulted from alienated labour in its relation to
genuine man and social property.
The non worker does everything against the worker which the worker does to himself
(long working hours, little money exhaustion etc) but he does not do this against
himself. :S
Trade Unions: workers began to form trade unions, the result is an expanding union
of the workers improved by communication and created by modern industries.
Consequently a political party came into existence. However, the proletariat cannot
become masters of the productive forces of society as they have nothing of their own
to secure and fortify. The proletariat movement is self-conscious, independent of the
immense majority. Instead of improving the situation, the workers sink deeper below
the conditions of existence of his own class. The bourgeoisie is also unfit to rule as it
is imcopentent to assure an existence to its slave, within its slavery. Because the
Bourgeoisie cannot he cannot help letting the workers sink into such a state, that has
fed him, instead of being fed by him. It s existence is no longer compatible with
society.
Communists
They point out and bring to the front common interests of the entire proletariat.
Independently of the nationality and they always represent the interest of the
movement as a whole. Capitalism can only be set in motion be the united action of all
members of the society. Capital is not a personal but a social power. Therefore
capital should be converted into common property of all members of society. There
can be no wage labour if there is no capital. The minimum wage are equal to the
means of subsistence necessary to keep the worker in life or bare existence.
Disappearance of the working class, would mean disappearance of the production
itself. Communism abolished the eternal truths and abolished all religion and morality
instead of constituting them on a new basis. Communism is there an act in
contradiction with all past historical experience.
(Communist) Measures that will be taken
1. Abolition property in land, application of all rents of land to public purpose
2. heavy progressive income taxes
3. abolition of right to inheritance
4. Confiscation of property rights
5. Centralization of credit, in the hands of the state by means of national bank
which will have all stat capital and an exclusive monopoly
6. Centralisation of communication and transport
7. Extension of factories and instruments owned by the state
8. equal obligation of all to work
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, abolition of
distinction between town and country. Hence population equally distributed
over country
10. Free Education
Sebastian
Marx
Freud (1856-1939)
Book
Civilization and Its Discontents
Eros
Freud shows that civilisation owes its existence to the possibility of sublimating love for one’s
family into the wider friendship and loyalty for the group, society and lastly the state. This
love is called Eros and thus consists of genital love and love with an inhibited aim. Genital
love makes the men want to keep their women with them, and the women to keep their
children with them. Love with an inhibited aim is love for mankind as a whole, which has two
disadvantages: loving everyone equally seems to degrade the quality of the love, and some
men are not worthy of love.
Death
Thus civilisation is realised by Eros, however, this transformation and sublimation creates
tensions and frustrations that strengthen the aggressive impulses in man. Civilisation has some
disadvantages, which increase the “primary hostility of men towards another”. Firstly, culture
restricts the sexual life, by creating taboos etc. Secondly, whereas a love relation is between
two people, society binds its members not only by economical, but also by libidinal ties. This
is an infringement on people’s sexual and love relations.
The existence of this instinct, this tendency towards aggression makes the demands and
restrictions of culture upon men necessary. Civilization is continually menaced by
disintegration through this aggression. Thus culture has to throw up barriers to keep this
aggression in control. Freud says, that despite its efforts, culture had not achieved much by far
in holding up against aggression.
Civilisation
Ego instincts (goal: self-preservation) and object instincts (love, preservation of the species,
favoured by nature) make the world go round. The progress of civilisation is thus a constant
struggle between the love instinct which furthers the process of civilisation and the aggression
instinct which obstructs it; there is a constant struggle between “Eros and Death.”
There is an advantage of living in smaller communities: this gives opportunity to direct the
aggression on the people outside the group. People can be united in a group as long as there
remain some people outside on whom they can focus their enmity.
Property
Abolishing private property will not change the individual differences in power and influence,
which a re turned by aggressiveness to its own use, nor does it change the nature of the
instinct in any way.
Freud Summary
Themes:
Aggression: The primal instinct of human beings is to act aggressively towards one
another. In primitive societies, the head of the family gave free reign to the instinctual
manifestations of his aggression at the expense of all others; in civilized society, we
have restrained our inclination to aggression through the rule of law and the
imposition of authority (both internal and external), to ensure the maximum security
and happiness for all. While we originally entered society precisely to escape the
forces of mutual aggression and self-destruction, the necessity to thwart our
aggressive instincts has paradoxically caused great unhappiness, an increasingly
burdensome sense of guilt, and in the most extreme cases, various forms of
psychological neurosis. Individuals have consequently begun to rebel against
civilization with an aggression that exceeds the level of aggression originally
suppressed, threatening the disintegration of society.
The Individual and Civilization: Freud draws an extended analogy between the
libidinal development of the individual and the evolution of civilization, identifying
three parallel stages in which each occurs: 1) character-formation (acquisition of a
distinct identity); 2) sublimation (channeling of primal energy into other physical or
psychological activities); 3) non-satisfaction/renunciation of instincts (burying of
aggressive impulses in the individual; imposition of the rule of law in society). Freud
also identifies a key difference between the two processes: the program of the
pleasure principle, which consists in finding and achieving happiness, is retained as
the central aim of individual development; whereas in the context of civilization,
personal happiness is often ignored in the interests of social unity and cohesion.
Eros and the Death Drive: The concept of a "death drive" was originally elaborated
in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1927), where it was opposed to Eros, or the life
instinct. Freud theorized that all subjects must maintain within the economy of their
libido a balance between these two instincts or "drives." Freud invokes the concept
extensively in his discussion of civilization, particularly in pointing to historical
examples of violent and destructive behavior. He concludes that the entire story of
civilization can be itself defined‹albeit in very broad terms‹as an ongoing and
unresolved struggle between Eros and its main adversary, the death drive.
Conscience and the Super-ego: Freud identifies an overwhelming sense of guilt as
one of the central problems threatening modern civilization, and attributes it to the
operation of the super-ego, an internal psychical agency that monitors the intentions
and actions of the ego, keeping the aggressive instincts of the latter in check.
Another term for the super-ego is conscience. Freud traces the formation of the
super-ego back to the primordial act of rebellion against authority: the killing of the
father by his sons, who were left with such a sense of remorse that they internalized
the authority formerly represented by their father. The super-ego often puts severe
demands on the individual that he cannot realistically met, causing great
unhappiness. Freud also posits the existence of a collective super-ego, embodied by
forceful leaders or men of great achievement, that operates on a larger scale within a
given culture or society.
Critique of Organized Religion: The vast majority of men regulate their behavior
according to the principles of religious doctrine, submitting their will and fate to the
judgment of a God, whom Freud considers to be little more than an inflated father
figure. Religion is based on the "future of an illusion" (the title of his previous essay)
because it answers the central question of our purpose on earth by gesturing toward
an afterlife. In the dictating a simple and clear path to happiness, religion spares the
masses of their individual neuroses, but Freud sees few other benefits: if the believer
were to realize the extent to which religion limits the possibilities of his happiness, his
only option would become to find pleasure in "unconditional submission" to his faith.
In Freud's view, there are less arduous and circuitous paths to happiness.