An Introduction to Political Philosophy

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The Nature and Scape of Political Philosophy 11 Some modern philosophers have raised the further question whether sentences which appear to express moral propositions are not, in part, expressions of a non-cognitive type of experience. They contend that a moral sentence is only in part the expression of a proposition, and is in part the direct expression of a feeling or a volition. This analysis has sometimes been described in picturesque terms as the 'Boo-Hurrah* Theory of Morality—meaning that moral sentences are, in part at least, not expressions of propositions at all but of feelings, just as booing and cheering are admitted to be expressions of feelings. Again, it may be argued that sentences in which the word 'ought* appears are, in part at least, the direct expression of conative attitudes or commands. Whether or not these suggestions are justified, it is important to remember that the philosopher is not directly concerned with feelings or conations but only with propositions about feelings or conations—such as the proposition asserting that moral sentences are in part a direct expression of feelings or conations, and only partly an expression of propositions about such feelings and conations. And it is not clear that the theories just referred to are doing more than drawing attention to the fact that the subject of a proposition is one thing and the proposition another, and forgetting that it is with propositions alone that the philosopher is directly concerned. If—as language certainly suggests—moral experience is a specific and distinctive kind of experience, the Naturalistic Theory of Morality must be rejected; and if the Rationalist Theory of synthetic a priori propositions is also rejected, it will be necessary to accept the Empiricist Theory of Morality. According to this theory moral propositions will be without any rational necessity, and rational arguments based upon them will therefore be of a hypothetical character. Given that 'A is good* it will be possible to deduce by a strictly rational process that 4B is good" and that *C is good" if these propositions are logically implied by *A is good';1 but the original premise *A is good" will be a belief or assumption without rational necessity. In other words, it may be possible to show that B and C must be good if A is good; but it will not be possible to show that A must be good—except, of course, in a hypothetical sense if the proposition 'A is good' is in turn implied by yet another proposition whose truth is assumed. In general, the major implication of Empiricism is that rational argument about the real world necessarily takes a hypothetical form. This is a direct consequence of the denial that synthetic propositions can be a priori, for all assertions of existence are synthetic, and therefore without a priori necessity. Moral arguments must, for the same reason, be hypothetical in character and thus incapable ofjustifying the ultimate premises upon which they are based. Political Philosophy These conclusions have important consequences for political philosophy, for the latter has usually taken the form of an attempt to justify certain assumptions about the methods and aims of government In most political philosophies this justification has been a moral justification, and has taken the form of an argument that certain forms of government, e.g. An Introduction to Political Philosophy Hume's Empiricism Before the present century, when the doctrine has received wide support, the most celebrated exponent of Empiricism was the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), now generally recognized to have been one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Hume held that the only propositions which are certainly true are those which describe * relations of ideas', by which he meant analytic relationships in the sense defined above. Those which describe "matters of fact*, i.e. synthetic propositions, cannot be rationally justified, although they can be accepted as true in so far as they are justified by direct observation. But of course the great majority of synthetic propositions—in particular, the socalled 'laws' of science—go far beyond this and make assertions which cannot be justified by experience. Thus Hume argued that the belief in the universal truth of scientific laws follows repeated observations of the sequences which they describe; but he denied that there is any necessity in these sequences, or even in the occurrence of the belief that they are universal and necessary. If I infer that, because all observed samples of arsenic have proved to be poisonous, therefore all samples whatsoever are poisonous, no logical justification of this inference can, according to Hume, be given. It is just a fact that, following on the observation of numerous samples of arsenic which prove to be poisonous, everybody believes that all samples whatsoever will prove to be poisonous. But there is, according to Hume, no rational justification for this belief; it just happens to occur following on experience of the effects of arsenic in a limited number of instances, and just happens to have proved a reliable guide in practice. There is no guarantee that it will prove to be true of all instances whatsoever. Thus there is nothing * reasonable' in the belief in the a priori sense. Hume reached the same sceptical conclusions about the general propositions of morality. He thought it obvious that these propositions are synthetic, and argued that they cannot therefore be a priori Such propositions as * Jealousy is evil* or * Lying is wrong* are, he thought, obviously synthetic in that their predicates are not part of the meaning of the subjects. And such propositions cannot be a priori, for no necessary connection can, in his view, be discerned between the subject and the predicate. Hence the basis for these moral generalizations must be the same as the basis for the generalizations of natural science— the observation of a limited number of instances. And this is not a rational ground for asserting them. Having denied that moral generalizations have any logical necessity, Hume set himself to analyse the empirical evidence on which they are based. He reached the conclusion that the basis of such generalizations is a peculiar type of sentiment or feeling. When I say "Honesty is good* I am, according to Hume, saying, in a rather specific sense of the word 'like*, i Like honesty*. I am, in fact, describing not an inherent quality of honesty but a feeling excited in me by the contemplation of honesty. This feeling Hume called the 'pleasing sentiment of approbation*. He thought that moral disapproval in the same way expresses a sentiment of disapprobation. Thus Hume concluded that there is nothing "rational* or "logical* in morality and that it is impossible to show, on a priori grounds, that moral propositions are true or false. Their truth or falsity depends on the purely empirical question whether they are or are not accurate descriptions of the feelings to which they relate.

Nine Best Introductory Political Philosophy Books The Nine Best Introductory Political Philosophy Books

The British economist, philosopher, and ethical theorist’s argument does not focus on “the so-called Liberty of the Will…but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.” Mill asks and answers provocative questions relating to the boundaries of social authority and individual sovereignty. In powerful and persuasive prose, he declares that there is “one very simple principle” regarding the use of coercion in society — one may only coerce others either to defend oneself or to defend others from harm. … In one sense, you could say political philosophy is simply a branch or what we call a subfield of the field of political science. Yes, all right. It exists alongside of other areas of political inquiry like American government, comparative politics, and international relations. Yet in another sense, political philosophy is something much different than simply a subfield; it seems to be the oldest and most fundamental part of political science. Its purpose is to lay bare, as it were, the fundamental problems, the fundamental concepts and categories which frame the study of politics. In this respect it seems to me much less like just a branch of political science than the foundation of the entire discipline. Introduction to Political Philosophy PLSC 114 - Lecture 1 - Introduction: What Is Political Philosophy? Written by the renowned political philosopher, Jo Wolff, this is the most succinct, lucid, and thought-provoking introduction to the key questions and controversies dominating political philosophy.ibid., VI, 493 ISBN 13:978-0-415-57921-6 (hbk) ISBN 13:978-0-203-85168-5 (ebk) ISBN 10:0-415-57921-X(hbk) ISBN 10:0-203-85168-4 (ebk) The course will provide an introduction to political philosophy by examining the justification of the state, problems democracy, liberty, justice, and feminist theory. First published in 1953 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This editionfirstpublished in 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor The second alternative has been called the 'Naturalistic' Theory of Morality by Professor G.E.Moore. See his Principia Ethica, Chapter II:

Political Philosophy Reading List – The Best 14 Books to Read Political Philosophy Reading List – The Best 14 Books to Read

Each chapter, when accessed digitally, includes tutorial-style videos from the author to help students understand the key questions and controversies in political philosophy and encourage them to form their own opinion.In more recent times various attempts have, of course, been made to introduce the 'rule of law* into international relations. Callicles A theory which closely resembles that of Antiphon is attributed by Plato to Callicles in the dialogue Gorgias, According to Plato, Callicles held that Nature is governed by the law of force, while civil and moral laws are normally the result of contracts made by the weak to defraud the strong of what their strength would otherwise secure for them. In a state of nature the survival of thefitwould be the effective rule of life, whereas the laws of society frequently reverse this principle and compel the strong to assist the weak. Callicles thought that his theory was supported by the considerations that in both the animal kingdom and the sphere of international relations,1 in neither of which there are restrictive laws, the rule of force is the operative principle. Hence, Callicles concludes, the rule of force is natural, and should not be opposed by the laws of society. It is not clear from what Plato tells us about Callicles* theory whether (to put the point in modern terms) he was defending a naturalistic theory of morality by defining 'right' in terms of 'might', or whether he was merely arguing that, as a matter of fact, it is morally desirable that the strong should get their way. The fact that he tried to deduce what ought to happen in human society from what does happen in the animal kingdom suggests that the After the disastrous ideological experiments of the 20th century, German-born American political philosopher Hannah Arendt diagnoses where it all went wrong. A translation of this fragment has been incorporated as an Appendix to Chapter III of Sir Ernest Barker's Greek Political Theory.

Introduction to Political Philosophy | Open Yale Courses Introduction to Political Philosophy | Open Yale Courses

Republic, 1,337 (translation by F.M.Comford). ibid., 1,346. A modern illustration of this principle is the fate of Hitler after his refusal to accept the settlement reached at the Munich Conference in October, 1938, and in ultimately losing all his power by placing no limit to his ambitions. Republic, I, 352. Exploring the institutions, operations, and techniques of totalitarian movements, Arendt’s 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism focuses on two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our recent history — Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia — which she shrewdly establishes as two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. An Introduction to Political Philosophy Rationalist and Empiricist Theories, and that this division reflects, and depends upon, the division betweenrationalistand empiricist theories of logic and knowledge. If this is so, nofinalanswer can be given to the questions of political philosophy without a decision on these broader issues, but a necessary and important task will have been accomplished if the problems of political philosophy are reduced to their ultimate and logical form.This does not, of course, mean that experience can in practice ever provide a logically valid proof of the 'uniformity of Nature*, but only that experience never reveals anything which is inconsistent with the assumption of that principle. But this goes in a slightly different direction as well. Not only is this study of the regime, as we’ve seen, as I’ve just tried to indicate, rooted in, in many ways, the practical experience of the thinkers we’ll be looking at; but the study of regime politics either implicitly or explicitly raises a question that goes beyond the boundary of any given society. A regime, as I’ve said, constitutes a people’s way of life, what they believe makes their life worth living, or to put it again slightly differently, what a people stand for. Although we are most familiar with the character of a modern democratic regime such as ours, the study of political philosophy is in many ways a kind of immersion into what we might call today comparative politics; that is to say it opens up to us the variety of regimes, each with its own distinctive set of claims or principles, each vying and potentially in conflict with all the others, okay? Underlying this cacophony of regimes is the question always, which of these regimes is best? What has or ought to have a claim on our loyalty and rational consent? What does a just society look like? What gives states legitimacy, and what level of authority should sovereign powers wield? What’s the best way to organize people? Is an ideal state possible? (Here’s Isaiah Berlin’s argument on why pursuing utopia is in fact dangerous). What purpose should society serve, if any? Where does tyranny or evil come from, and how can its emergence be stopped? Are we born with inherent human rights? If so, what are they? If not, what rights should be enshrined in law and why? An Introduction to Political Philosophy First published in 1953, this seminal introduction to political philosophy is intended for both the student of political theory and for the general reader. After an introduction which explains the nature and purpose of philosophy, Dr Murray provides a critical examination of the principle theories advanced by political philosophers from Plato to Marx, paying special attention to contemporary issues. The book also makes an attempt to define the essential issues of philosophical significance in contemporary politics, with special reference to the conflict between political authority and individual rights, and to show how the different moral assumptions underlying authoritarian and democratic systems of government are ultimately based upon different theories of logic. By a 'judgment' is here meant the 'assertion of a proposition'. The word thus serves to emphasize the active function of the mind upon which Kant and Hegel laid so much stress.

An Introduction to Political Philosophy

Revised and updated to diversify the text throughout, in terms of the thinkers considered, the examples used, and the further reading recommended. An Introduction to Political Philosophy On the other hand, so long as the issue between Rationalism and Empiricism is left open, there is no reason why Rationalism should not be combined with a Naturalistic Theory of Morality. For then, even if moral conceptions can be defined in terms of non-moral conceptions, they may be necessarily related to the subject of the propositions in which they occur if it is possible for a proposition to be at once synthetic and a priori It is, indeed, quite consistent to combine either a Moral or a Naturalistic Theory of Morality with either a Rationalist or Empiricist Theory since the latter represent the alternative views which may be held about the logical status of moral propositions, while the former represent alternative views which may be held about the meaning of moral concepts. On the other hand, if Empiricists are right in holding that the basic premise of Rationalism—that synthetic propositions may be a priori—is self-contradictory., the rationalist form of both Moral and Naturalistic Theories is automatically ruled out, and the issue narrowed to a choice between the empiricist forms of the Moral and Naturalistic Theories. Political theories may therefore be broadly classified as follows: Rationalist Moral Furio Cerutti is professor emeritus of political philosophy at the University of Florence. Ten years of his academic career were spent at the Universities of Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main and later at Harvard (Law School and laterCenter for European Studies). He has also been a visiting professor at China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing; London School of Economics; Paris 8; Scuola superiore Université de Sant’Anna, Pisa; Stanford University in Florence. For example, whether or not 'the good' can be defined as 'the desired*, it is quite a distinct question whether a proposition such as 'Benevolence is good' is a priori or empirical.Critique ofPure Reason, Second Edition, Introduction. The Problems of Philosophy, p. 129. Language, Truth, and Logic, Second Edition, p. 78. Publishers description: Discussed and debated from time immemorial, the concept of personal liberty went without codification until the 1859 publication of On Liberty. John Stuart Mill’s complete and resolute dedication to the cause of freedom inspired this treatise, an enduring work through which the concept remains well known and studied. An Introduction to Political Philosophy beings must feel and will and think in accordance with certain psychological laws. Of these psychological laws Antiphon thought that the most fundamental is the desire to live and be happy and to avoid death and unhappiness. But the laws of society often interfere with the operation of this Law of Nature since they restrain people from performing acts, e.g. stealing, which might bring them happiness. Antiphon admitted that there is a sound reason for observing the laws of society if to break them would involve the shame of conviction and the pain of punishment, for these consequences are painful to the individual, and to court them is therefore to violate the fundamental Law of Nature. But whenever an individual can increase his happiness by breaking the Law of Society and avoiding detection and punishment, it is, Antiphon thought, in accordance with the Law of Nature for him to do so. The weakness of this theory is that it ignores the inevitable social relationships in which a man must live. The laws forbidding theft and murder may at times stand in the way of what a given individual would like to do; but they also prevent other people from doing to him what would undoubtedly be to his disadvantage. Indeed, the majority of civil laws are of potential advantage, as well as disadvantage, to an individual. As Hobbes subsequently recognized, a theory based upon the assumption that self-interest is the primary motive of human conduct is tenable only if it recognizes that self-interest may be quite different from the gratification of an immediate impulse, and that the achievement of personal happiness depends in no small measure upon controlling these immediate impulses and obeying civil laws made in the interest of all. Antiphon's principle might, indeed, have a useful application in a society ruled by a dictator ready to sacrifice his subjects* interests in pursuing his own, but apart from such circumstances the principle is fraught with grave dangers to the interests of both the individual and society. The best introductory text about political philosophy currently available. The contents are easy for the newcomer to the subject of political philosophy to assimilate. The narrative is clear and thought provoking." - Professor Ian Godfrey Finlayson, European School of Economics, UK