POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Thomas Hobbes
a) The Political Background
The English Civil war
Tensions and battles begin in 1642
Execution of Charles I 1649
The commonwealth 16491653
The Protectorate 16531660
Restoration of the monarchy 1660
b) The intellectual background
The divine right of king’s ▯authority of kings came from God
Individualism (anarchy) threatened the divine right of kings
c) Hobbes’ challenge
Hobbes’ purpose was to find an intellectual grounding for theories of political organization,
And so, at the intellectual level to find a way out of the chaos of the Civil War
He was a thinker of the ‘new age’ (about the time of the turn of science – an empirical approach to
discovering the world rather than relying on wisdom of old authorities)
Materialist: rejects the idea of the soul and its survival
Individualist: rejects the idea that humans are essentially, or naturally, social (he believed that left to
themselves, with no intervention, humans were individualists)
▯Against the idea, expressed in Aristotle’s definition of humans:
“man is a political animal”
1. The Social Contract
A) The Frontispiece of leviathan was a radical rejection of the Divine right: his clothing is made up of people
▯showing that the power of the king ultimately derives from the people rather than from God
B) The state of nature: “…a general inclination of all mankind is a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases
only in death….
“…he cannot be content with a moderate power […] because he cannot assure the power and means to live
well which he has present without the acquisition of more.”
• Individual humans have roughly the same power as another
• This equality of ability gives rise to equality of hope of attaining our ends
Hobbes proposes there are three principal causes of quarrel:
competition
diffidence
glory
“The first makes men invade for gain, the second for safety, and the third for reputation.”
“…during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which
is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man.”
“In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no
culture of the earth; no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious
building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face
of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and, which is worst of all, continual fear and
danger of violent death…and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
▯For Hobbes this “state of nature” was not merely a theoretical state; he thought it existed among “the savage
people in many places of America”
▯In this state of nature “nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there
no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.”
“The…design of men, who naturally love liberty and dominion over others, in the introduction of that restraint
upon themselves in which we see them live in commonwealths is the foresight of their own preservation, and
of a more contented life thereby…”
C) The Social Contract
“The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners
and the injuries of one another…is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly
of men that may reduce all their wills…unto one will.”
“I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this
condition, that you give up your right to him and authorize all his actions in like manner”
“This is the generation of the great LEVIATHAN (or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god) to
which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defense.”
2. The Form of the state
Thus far, we have a generation of political authority. Next question is should that authority be a monarchy
aristocracy or democracy?
a) Monarchy (one person)
b) Aristocracy (an assembly into only which some can enter) c) Democracy (an assembly into which all may enter)
These are the only three possible forms of government which all have a “bad” form:
Monarchy – tyranny
Aristocracy –oligarchy
Democracy anarchy
3. Hobbes argues in favour of monarchy
Which of these three forms of government has the most “convenience or aptitude” to produce the peace and security of
the people?
A person who is in authority is someone who “bears the person of the people and bears also his own natural person” –
basically anyone who is in power is a split personality with the interest of the people at heart and their own private
interests at heart
Where the public and the private interest are most closely united, there is the public most advanced.
“In monarchy, the private interest is the same with the public” there is the least split interest from people and power
and most people.
“The riches, power and honour of a monarch arise only form the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects:
4. Absolute Monarchy
i) the monarch’s power is not limited by law (as would be the case in a constitutional monarchy)
ii) the monarch’s power is not shared with, or curbed by, a parliament.
iii) the monarch’s decisions are final: there is no appeal from them.
iv) the monarch’s authority extends to religion.
v) the monarch’s authority extends to every area of life.
vi) in an interesting way, this also means that the monarch also has no private life no private fortune, no
private ambitions, even no private moments.
The archetype of this kind of absolute monarch was Louis XIV
Hobbes’ theory that monarchy is preferable is an empirical theory
He thinks monarchy has the greatest convenience and aptitude to produce peace and security of the people
th
It is a theory that can be tested, has been tested, and failed the test (in France it was tested during the 18
century and lead to the French revolution, and four years later the beheading of Louis XVI)
Hobbes seems to have made an error about human psychology:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
John Stuart Mill On Liberty)
Since ancient Greek times people have been discussing what form of government is best:
Monarchy
Aristocracy Meritocracy
Democracy
th
But a whole new question arose in the 19 century: not the form of the government but the scope of the government
(how much a persons private life should the government be able to govern) ▯how extensive should the power of the
government be?
The effect of his book, On Liberty, was to introduce a new dimension into our conception of political organization
We used to think of political organization as running along a continuum from monarchy via representative democracy
to communism.
Totalitarianism: a system in which the scope of government covers everything in human life
Libertarianism: The scope of the government is as limited as possible, preferably zero engagement in people’s lives
Monarchy Democracy Communism
Totalitarian Absolute monarchy Soviet states
Moderate Constitutional monarchy Us
Libertarian Anarchy Mill Hippy communes?
Mill’s View: “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty
of action of any of their number, is selfprotection”
Mill’s “Harm Principle” …the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a
civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant.”
The Scope of Liberty:
“The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In
the part, which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own
body and mind, the individual is sovereign….” (the government should not interfere with someone doing harm
to themselves but only an individual doing harm to others)
Mill has a particular interest in liberty of thought and speech
a) Inward domain of consciousness; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on
all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral or theological – including the liberty of expressing and
publishing opinions
b) Liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like,
subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellowcreatures, so long as what
we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong.
c) Liberty of combination among individuals, freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others….
Two forms of constraint
Mill believes that there are two forms of constraint that a government should not enforce
a) Physical force or legal penalties b) The moral coercion of public opinion
“There is in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both
by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation…."
▯Thus, he would think (to take the example of drug use):
• There should be no laws against drug use that does not harm other people
• There should be no climate of public opinion that discourages such behaviour
This was a revolutionary idea at the time where there was a coercion of public opinion – atheists were not allowed to
be part of the parliament in England
A Problem for Mill
Are his insistence on freedom of opinion, and his insistence on the absence of the constraint of public opinion
consistent?
▯But collective disagreement is good; it leads to truth. And a society in which such disagreements absent is not a
healthy one
The Tyranny of the Majority
Suppose that a law is passed, by majority vote in a democracy, according to which all redheads are to be sterilized. In a
majoritarian democracy this would be legal. BUT surely unjust
▯Mill proposes that constitutions or charters constrain the majority and scope of the government (to avoid tyranny).
Constitutions and Charters can only be modified by some form of supermajority.
The whole development of the theory of “human rights” – and, in Canada, of character rights – is an ordered way of
responding to “the tyranny of the majority”. Human rights are a way of defending political liberty, of ensuring that the
scope of government is restrained.
▯A famous Canadian case:
When Stockwell Day was leader of the Reform party he proposed that any motion should be put to referendum if
200,000 signatures were obtained on a petition for such a referendum
A petition was swiftly put together, and quickly gathered 200,000 signatures petitioning that Stockwell Day’s
name should be changed to Doris Day
Stockwell Day quickly abandoned his referendum proposal
Emancipation of Women
It was part of Mill’s view about liberty (and part of his utilitarianism) that he proposed and defended the emancipation
of women
He argued that women should be given equal rights with men; the old theories about what women are not
by nature able to do should be subjected to empirical test.
He was a “social constructionist” before his time: he saw that people are made what they are –in part by
other people’s beliefs and expectations of them
At this time, women did not have the right to vote or to own property
He argued that there should be a free market of labour; women should be allowed to try their hand at
anything, and be paid the same as men for whatever the job is
"I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their
present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences
between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by
allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely."
Advantages to emancipation of women (according to Mill): a) Be of immediate benefit to society
b) Contribute to the greater good
c) Enhance individual development
The emancipation of women can thus be justified on utilitarian principles
Summary:
1. Divine right monarchy
2. Social contract monarchy (Hobbes)
3. Majoritarian democracy (Locke)
4. Liberal democracy (J.S. Mill)
5. Next: Social democracy (John Rawls)
John Rawls
1. Background:
a) Brief Biography one of most widely read books in philosophy wrote three books a theory of justice,
political liberalism, the law of peoples
b) Rawls’s context: Social Contract Tradition
(i) brief overview of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau
(ii) Two versions of social contract theory: contractualism vs contractarianism
two versions of social contract theory:
1. contractarianism: we are motivated to contract together primarily out of self interest
2. contractualism: we contract together not just out of selfinterest. Rawls thinks that we contract together
both out of concern for ourselves and for others. Rawls things that out of respect for one another we need
to justify publicly the principles by which society is governed.
• Need an intellectual argument to base the principles on which we are governed
(iii) the timeliness of Rawls
aside from some philosophical reasons for scepticism, the social contract tradition seemed as…
2. Overview of A Theory of Justice
a) Not a form of government, but principles of justice
“My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of
abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. In
order to do this we are not to think of the original contract as one to enter a particular society or to set
up a particular form of government. Rather, the guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the
basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement.”
For Rawls, the social tract does not consist in agreeing to join some particular society but rather in
choosing principles by which to order society
b) Rawls’s general conception of justice: “All social values – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self
respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these
values is to everyone’s advantage.”
Rawls is speaking about distributive justice (i.e. a just allocation of goods to each of the members of society)
Social primary goods:
• Basic liberties: political liberties (the right to vote, eligibility for public office, etc.)
• Freedom of speech and assembly
• Liberty of conscience
• Freedom of thought
• Freedom of the person
• Freedom to hold personal property
• Freedoms in accord with the rule of law
c) Two principles of justice:
i) Equality Principle
Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for
others
ii) Difference Principle
Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: reasonably expected to be to
everyone’s advantage and attached to positions and offices open to all
**against inherited social status/wealth
iii) The two principles are serially ordered
will not trade off a basic libery for the sake of economic advantage
would we be willing to trade your vote for a burger? Rawls thinks we wouldn’t be willing to make this trade.
But he thinks this only holds true in welldeveloped societies.
3. Method of A Theory of Justice: How do we get the two principles of justice?
a) The Original Position
i) The original position is analogous to the state of nature in the contract tradition
ii) It is hypothetical: the original position gives us a way to see not what we do agree to or have agreed
to but what we would agree to in a fair way
“[The] original position is not ... thought of as an actual historical state of affairs, much less as
a primitive condition of culture. It is understood as a purely hypothetical situation
characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice.” How is it fair?
iii) Veil of Ignorance
“Among the essential features of the [original position] is that no one knows his place in
society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution
of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that
the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their specific psychological
propensities.”
Stops us from seeing our own position within that society
b) Reasoning from the Original Position to the Two Principles of Justice
i) Maximin Rule: in a situation with multiple uncertain outcomes, we will make a decision based on
maximizing the minimum outcome
Circumstances
C1 C2 C3
Decisions D1 10 5 25
D2 1 15 18
D3 5 5 5
D4 6 7 10
Reasoning from the original position to the two principles of justice
ii) standpoint of the leastadvantaged representative:
We don’t choose the principle of utility
We choose the two principles of justice
4. Three Problems with the Original Position
a) Susan Okin: Who gets included in the original position? What about the family?
b) Robert Nozick: Why wouldn’t we be willing to gamble in the original position? Why not risk getting the
shack if we might get the mansion?
c) H.L.A. Hart: Rawls imports an ideal of civicmindedness into the original position. Whshouldn’t we
be willing to trade off political liberties for wealth? Hart isn’t convinced that Rawls gives a good argument here.
Marx Communism)
Born in Germany, educated in Bonn & Berlin and moved to Paris, Brussels and finally England where he spent the rest
of his life writing. He was voted “the greatest thinker” of the millennium A Common Objection to communism and its principles is that communism is a failed theory; it never managed to
achieve economic prosperity in any of the places where it has been implemented. No communist society has ever been
successful
▯Have any of these societies actually fulfilled the criteria that Marx set out?
a) Three Classes (of people)
Marx breaks society into three classes
Bourgeoisie: Those who have money and own the means of production
Proletariat: Those who make up the working class
(Aristocracy: Those who are off hunting and playing polo)
Marx is mainly interested in thinking about the Bourgeoisie and the proletariat and the relationships be
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