Political Theory. Pete Woodcock

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Contents of this book

      Each chapter in this book, as mentioned above, is organized around a central question in the history of political thought. They are as follows.

       What is the nature of politics?

      We begin by examining what acting politically entails, or what should people engaged in politics do? We will find a large variety of responses across the history of political thought. This chapter will commence with a discussion of the Greek philosopher Socrates and his life and thought. He argued that the individual should always strive for knowledge of the virtues, and that the unexamined life is not worth living. There is something inherently human and vital to discussing the very type of questions that we will be tackling in this book together. We will then go on to examine the work of the Florentine writer Machiavelli, who will argue that the chief goal of any politician should be glory, both for themselves and for the state. If one achieves glory, you can be forgiven immoral acts you have committed along the way. The utilitarian school of moral thinking will then be introduced, which posits that happiness, rather than glory, should be the driving feature of all government policy and political action. Immanuel Kant will then be introduced as a counterbalance to both Machiavelli and the utilitarians. Politics must always bend the knee to morality for Kant, that is to say that acting morally is always more important that achieving glory and/or happiness. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of Max Weber and his guidance that passion is an insufficient quality to succeed in politics.

       Is humanity nasty or nice?

This chapter will compare and contrast the works of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes will illustrate that in their natural condition man is violent and nasty, and left to their own devices, that is to say without a state, they will end up killing one another. Rousseau will counter that man’s anti-sociability is not a product of nature; indeed, he claims that in his natural state man is good if not moral, but rather a product of civilized man. Civilization has corrupted our innate goodness. We will also briefly examine here the thoughts on the nature of good and evil by German philosopher Nietzsche, who argues that these concepts are not unchangeable over time, and that which we call good these days is often life destroying.

       Why should I obey the state?

      This chapter begins by examining the social contract theory of Thomas Hobbes and his near contemporary John Locke. Although they both ultimately say that all obligation to obey the state rests upon consent, the type of consent and the powers of the sovereign differ greatly between them. It will then examine some critiques of liberal social contract theory, namely those of Rousseau, Hume and Pateman.

       Is democracy the best form of government?

      This chapter will examine some of the challenges that exist around discussions of democratic thought. It will firstly compare and contrast Athenian direct democracy to our contemporary understanding of politics, noting the central differences between the two being a limited citizenry as well as the lack of representatives. It will then outline Edmund Burke’s arguments in favour of representative democracy, and in particular non-delegated representatives who are not obliged to pay too much attention to their electors in between elections. We will then go on to examine some of the challenges to democracy, namely James Madison’s federalist paper number 10, which argues that the size of the proposed US republic would prevent faction, before overviewing de Tocqueville’s and Mill’s concerns about the tyranny of the majority. We will see that Mill suggests that whereas everyone should get one vote, some people should get more than that.

       When can my freedom be restricted?

This chapter will discuss a number of debates around the nature of freedom in society. It will commence with Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative liberty; that there have been two different ways in the history of political thought that freedom has been conceptualized. This will be challenged by Gerald MacCallum who will argue that there is only one concept of freedom, and Quentin Skinner’s assertion that there are three. The chapter will end with a discussion of John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, the notion that the just state should only ever stop someone from doing things that directly and physically harm someone else. The state, nor anyone else for that matter, has no right to ban someone from doing that which only harms themselves, or that which offends other people.

       What would a just society look like?

      In this chapter, we will examine different notions of justice in society. We will commence with Plato’s assertion that justice involves a harmonious state when each does that which best suits them; everyone in society has a role, but these roles are not equal. This will be contrasted to Aristotle’s notion of justice as balance. We will then examine justice more in terms of the distribution of goods, and outline John Locke’s famous defence of a natural right to private property, and show how this was critiqued by David Hume and Thomas Paine. Next, we will move on to the debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick, two Harvard colleagues, about the nature of justice. We will see that Rawls argues that justice is arrived at via a mind game in which the participants do not know how they will be affected as individuals, which ends up as a defence of the social democratic state. Nozick, on the other hand, will argue that justice means that the only permissible state is that which defends individual property rights.

       Why have women been ignored in the history of political thought?

      This chapter will attempt to show why so many of the thinkers mentioned above are men. It will begin with Rousseau’s argument about the natural inequalities between men and women, before critiquing this with the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. Wollstonecraft and Mill will argue that there are no natural differences between men and women, and, where differences exist, it is due to women’s inability to access social goods such as education and improving work, as well as their lack of rights. The chapter will conclude with I.M. Young’s contention that there are differences between men and women when it comes to ethical and political reasoning, but the male forms of reasoning are universalized. So liberal democratic culture is inherently biased towards men.

       When is revolution against government justified?

      Here we will overview a number of responses to when it is acceptable to overthrow the government. It will begin with the debate between Edmund Burke, who argues that revolution is only justified if one is restoring a set of rights and privileges that have been denied you, and Thomas Paine, who argued that only political institutions based upon reason are permissible. The chapter will end with a long overdue examination of Karl Marx, who will show that revolution is the natural driving force of societies, and overthrowing the capitalist regime is not only justifiable, but the only way one will achieve a communist СКАЧАТЬ