An Introduction to Political Philosophy

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Jonathan Wolff's An Introduction to Political Philosophy is still the best introduction to the subject that I know. It guides the reader through deep questions in a way that is clear, approachable and thought-provoking." - Professor Michael Rosen, Department of Government, Harvard University, USA 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

Conceptualizing Politics An Introduction to Political Philosophy Conceptualizing Politics An Introduction to Political Philosophy

But there is a corollary to this insight. The regime is always something particular. It stands in a relation of opposition to other regime types, and as a consequence the possibility of conflict, of tension, and war is built in to the very structure of politics. Regimes are necessarily partisan, that is to say they instill certain loyalties and passions in the same way that one may feel partisanship to the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox, or to Yale over all rival colleges and institutions, right? Fierce loyalty, partisanship: it is inseparable from the character of regime politics. These passionate attachments are not merely something that take place, you might, say between different regimes, but even within them, as different parties and groups with loyalties and attachments contend for power, for honor, and for interest. Henry Adams once cynically reflected that politics is simply the “organization of hatreds,” and there is more than a grain of truth to this, right, although he did not say that it was also an attempt to channel and redirect those hatreds and animosities towards something like a common good. This raises the question whether it is possible to transform politics, to replace enmity and factional conflict with friendship, to replace conflict with harmony? Today it is the hope of many people, both here and abroad, that we might even overcome, might even transcend the basic structure of regime politics altogether and organize our world around global norms of justice and international law. Is such a thing possible? It can’t be ruled out, but such a world, I would note–let’s just say a world administered by international courts of law, by judges and judicial tribunals–would no longer be a political world. Politics only takes place within the context of the particular. It is only possible within the structure of the regime itself. 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. Beauvoir dissects how “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” — shining a light on the negative fallout and injustices of stereotyped gender expectations.

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The wager on which Conceptualizing Politics rests is that by focusing on the concepts fundamental to politics one can break through the complexity ordinarily associated with that subject. On that score this book is an extraordinary success. Recommended not only to those who wish to be introduced to politics but also to those who want to deepen their knowledge of the subject." - David M. Rasmussen, Professor, Boston College; Editor-in-Chief, Philosophy and Social Criticism As will be the case if, for example, B and C arc members of the more general Class A, or universal conditions of A. Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 150 (Allen and Unwin, 1948). E.g. laws forbidding cruelty to animals.

An introduction to political philosophy : Wolff, Jonathan An introduction to political philosophy : Wolff, Jonathan

The course will provide an introduction to political philosophy by examining the justification of the state, problems democracy, liberty, justice, and feminist theory.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

An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Paperback) - Waterstones An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Paperback) - Waterstones

But a regime is more than simply a set of formal structures and institutions, okay? It consists of the entire way of life, the moral and religious practices, the habits, customs, and sentiments that make a people what they are. The regime constitutes an ethos, that is to say a distinctive character, that nurtures distinctive human types. Every regime shapes a common character, a common character type with distinctive traits and qualities. So the study of regime politics is in part a study of the distinctive national character types that constitutes a citizen body. To take an example of what I mean, when Tocqueville studied the American regime or the democratic regime, properly speaking, in Democracy in America, he started first with our formal political institutions as enumerated in the Constitution, such things as the separation of powers, the division between state and federal government and so on, but then went on to look at such informal practices as American manners and morals, our tendency to form small civic associations, our peculiar moralism and religious life, our defensiveness about democracy and so on. All of these intellectual and moral customs and habits helped to constitute the democratic regime. And this regime–in this sense the regime describes the character or tone of a society. What a society finds most praiseworthy, what it looks up to, okay? You can’t understand a regime unless you understand, so to speak, what it stands for, what a people stand for, what they look up to as well as its, again, its structure of institutions and rights and privileges.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. urn:lcp:introductiontopo0000wolf:epub:220c1759-d338-4b77-8aec-a4f51a54b03b Foldoutcount 0 Identifier introductiontopo0000wolf Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t24c55n39 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0192892517 Lccn 95038873 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9625 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-0000177 Openlibrary_edition 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. Publishers description: Written in 1833-4, when Marx was barely twenty-five, this astonishingly rich body of works formed the cornerstone for his later political philosophy. In the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State, he dissects Hegel’s thought and develops his own views on civil society, while his Letters reveal a furious intellect struggling to develop the egalitarian theory of state. Equally challenging are his controversial essay On the Jewish Question and the E conomic and Philosophical Manuscripts, where Marx first made clear his views on alienation, the state, democracy and human nature. Brilliantly insightful, Marx’s Early Writings reveal a mind on the brink of one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history – the theory of Communism. This translation fully conveys the vigour of the original works. The introduction, by Lucio Colletti, considers the beliefs of the young Marx and explores these writings in the light of the later development of Marxism. An Introduction to Political Philosophy is a concise, lucid, and thought-provoking introduction to the most important questions of political philosophy, organised around the major issues. Wolff provides the structure that beginners need, whilst also introducing some distinctive ideas of his own.