POLI 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Utopia, Maoism, Jeremy Bentham
Document Summary
State strives to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Requires state accountability to citizens as it promotes collective goals. It turns politics into a number game (if i can make 270 people happy and the expense of the 30 people who aren"t happy, then it works - total highest utility) Can be criticized for ignoring minority rights. Liberalism calls for a neutral state, pluralist state. Understand the individual as free-formed of asocial (ex. i don"t require membership of any group, i am who i am and i can choose which group i belong to) Communitarianism sees the state as uniting the society around a common set of values. Emphasized by thinkers such as rousseau and hegel (thinks about what people really want) The state is judged by how well it upholds the non-selfish will of its people. Importance of overcoming the particular will of the individual, the family, and the civil society for the benefit of all.