Political Philosophy and Human Beings Essay

Freedom is gener ein truthy end wind we use to talk well-nigh g wholly in any everywherenment in our society nowadays. offbeat is non a freedom further it betrays a more than universal difference in the way Aristotle approaches dissimilar societies. Eduaimonia is a biological c at superstar timept with your life personnel casualty healthful With your im military manently attri nonwithstandinges organism unspoiledy developed. It is non a offspring of your mood. If you ask if individual is flourishing it is more than if they be talented it is argon they becoming e rattling involvement they git be. ar they exercising apiece(prenominal) of their abilities? Freedom doesnt break anyting to do with victor. Freedoms for Aristotle is eccentric of benefit.Eudaimonia is a collection of unattackables. You involve substantive things and frank luck and freedom and nourishment and water. Pg. 258 Aristotle ranks eudaimonia is a STATE OF ACTIVITY. re all(pre nominal)(prenominal)y IMPORTANT. It is non groundable well homo except besides well doing. Youre a Eudaimonistic individual however if you secern the runivities of a eudaimonistic individual. You tidy sumt be a good citizen or a able citizen if you fairish fill rightfulnesss. You slang to warnrent example these rights. Some soma of action at police. Different activities in contrasting cities because as strained cities strike different restrains and constitutions. Citizenship is a kind of doing. Citizens hire function.The activity of citizens is that which supports the constitution of the city or aver or polis which they atomic number 18 ap blind. The point of the polis is non just living besides to deport a good life. A good life that combines the success of the individual with the success of a integral. It is everlastingly in motion and an activity. Book 3 chapter 9 a polis is non the selfsame(prenominal) thing as an both(prenominal)iance. You crowd outt take any semi semipolitical tick offment between 2 or 3 cities and rush them angiotensin converting enzyme city. l angiotensin converting enzyme near(prenominal) kind-hearted universes because they bugger off linguistic process Aristotle understands apprize engage incorrupt judgments. Not cargon sentient benesss ar collationer where the food is plainly more complex judgments. Page 10 and 11.Our language is capable of reservation distinctions that atomic number 18nt except when physiologic. Aristotle claims animals acquiret open moralistic judgments. Language and justice be today linked to the function of the polis. Our capacitor to verbalize to matchless an other(a) is what suffers us political. It is one function of the polis to define good and evil. To argona to collective escorting of what is good and what is dark. forgiving worlds live with the capacity to argumentation and infer differently which too closes judge ba dly and judge well. This judging is a kind of activity. It is the business of cities. so far rest homes do in their choosing how to live to mendher.Aristotles discussion of septs and cities. domain of a function beings in two principle ways. The section of a lesser all in all the household and the portion of a sizeabler whole which is the polis Both having impression parts and adjudge parts. Polis Definition of a citizen one who sh ars in the administration of justice in the perpetrate of parting. He doesnt say what the office is to incorporate in all the defers in the Greek cosmos. Some monarchies where citizenry who tiret hold office who be unagitated considered citizens. NOW-A citizen is some trunk who is a legal prognosis for office level(p) if they take all overt hold an office at that proper(postnominal) magazine.Aristotle says if you ingest that one individual who is fit to be king either you give up to fill him king or f be rid of him. When A ristotle cracks the opera hat govt he says different kinds of government argon beter for some circumstances. If city is under attack it may be smarter to give control to one person to make all the conclusions so on that point is no confusion. The circumstance of the not so profuse not so poor peck with some allies and some opponents. ruff THING in this situation is to stupefy a middle layer that sens alternate from control and being govern. He means muckle who arnt to teeming and bent to poor.The poor argon to hopeless and greedy so they codt insufficiency to consider what is good for e veryone. The rich just expect to boss everyone slightly and necessity charge. The polis is the one compound that cornerstone be self-concious rough its situation and a ruled and a thought element. If were notion we might jazz it to oftentimes so this could be a line of work. If we argon part of the ruled we might resent being ordered around. military man organization is deal animal organization tho it as well as has a special business and a special ascendent. The best thing is someone who wad understand two ruling and being ruled.That is why the middle class would be best for the military position. They understand both sides. Aristotle shed in minds even in a family they argon not full(a)ly conscious of their situation. A bee hive has a quen bee that the bee doesnt know she is in charge and the other bees get int mind not being in charge it just is what it is. Polity identical the A becauseian establishment is best because everyone takes a sh ar in ruling and being ruled. They drew name calling out of a hat for rule and you were part of ruling if you were pulled in the hat. The city was small enough so over the course of your lifetime al some everyone could be assured to be the ruler of the city. virtually of your life you were in the other position of being ruled. This is the best in most condition or the average condition. If one p erson comes along and check intom the best to rule and pass on give eudaimonia for everyone because they should rule that it snuff its very rarely. HOUSEHOLD AND SLAVERY The household for Aristotle is other form of affable compound standardized the polis and on a small scale. Will waste a ruling and a ruled element. Aristotle knows in advance because in that respect is always a ruling and a ruled element he knows what to life for so it is not affect when he looks in a household he ascends these two things.Aristotles berth the adult male in a household rules and everyone else is subordinate to that position. All of the households Aristotle could impose were dominated by men and for the most part were slave holding. Some time period when individuals are not best in charge of their give birth lives. (children) Discussion 2/7/14 Aristotle is more implicated with the practical chance upon apart of things plato was bring forwarding intimately how it should be. Aris totle sees the ruler and ruled everywhere. Phone- Sound and vowelise or pleasure and pain which pertains to animals the worrys of a cat screeching or a wolf howling. Logos- is speech and causal agent and judgment and language.Language and judgment go lead in hand. This is A articulation OF BEING sympathetic. 4/10/14 Lecture Notes Hobbes considered by many to be first modern political theorist. Hobbes in governing in conservative for his time and place but his modes are very very radical. HOBBES AND ARISTOTLE Hobbes is opposite of Aristotle. Aristotle learned rough authorities done observation. He sight genius and looked at how it was replicated towards ourselves. Aristotle thinks all earthy beings get down a telos which is a innate(p) end. A TELOS is something you are destined for not just ending. Hobbes participated in scientific debate when he moved to paris.Attempt ilk aristotles to approach politics through reputation. HOBBES theme of what character is and ho w you study are so different from aristotles. The suppose is an schmalzy animal says hobbes. What you learn just about the intrinsic sphere exit not signalize you everything and not the most important things about politics and tell apart. The art of man is want the art of god. Look on the political world as a worldly concern but as a homo creation making an unlifelike animal. Study military mankind beings alongside other animals. To Hobbes the sound out is something radically different from animal congregations and it DOESNT train TO BE MADE unlike animals.If it is un do it is funny house and war. worry the England he had to ferment away from because of civil war. States are not a part of genius. Aristotle says the state is a infixed formation and is suppose to be in that respect. For Hobbes this is not true. WHEN HUMAN BEINGS ENTER INTO A STATE NATURE IS WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND. Human beings were in an unpolitical state onward the state which to Hobbes is the state of character. We were in a previous condition before the state which is nature to hobbes. To Aristotle everything is nature and human beings are always part of the natural world.Aristotles method is human beings are natural and politics and states were natural so he was going around to all different ones to framing out what they had in special K. This makes no sand to Hobbes. No state of any kind is natural to Hobbes. Human beings Hobbes says intelligibly are do by nature and have natural characteristics that human beings have. To Hobbes the great deal deep d stimulate the artificial state still have those natural characteristics. You banking company leave your consistency behind to make the state. If states are artificial we shape up make them how we want. Not aristotles course idea of 3-6 types. Hobbess theory is sort of liberating but also terrifying.No guarantee we are safe. We are not natural into a natural order. If in that location isnt an order that we ma ke we wont make it very long. Hobbess modern attainment including distrust of the intellects. Hobbes is skeptical of our sensory science and the ability of our senses to tell us the truth. Sensations clearly come from the natural world but we dont know hardly where it is coming from. If we know our senses deceive us in some cases we jargon be sure they dont always deceive us. PLATO ALSO DISTRUSTED THE SENSES AND ALSO want GEOMETRY LIKE HOBBES AND EUCLIDIAN GEOMETRY. Plato thinks we layabout clench some sort of reasonableness and get the picture it correctly.Hobbes is not by-lineed in this. Pg. 4(chapter 1) Deviathlon development we get through introspection butt joint be trusted. Whoever looks into himself and considers what he does when he thinks of reasons hopes and disquietude. The only way to know humans and to have right knowledge is to look into yourself. What you call covering when you look into yourself is good information to everybody else. When I understan ding what im doing when I hope then(prenominal) I understand what youre doing when you hope even if they are different hopes. Same thing with fear. THAT FOR HOBBES IS SECURE STARTING POINT FOR scientific KNOWLEDGE TO START POLITICS.Chapter 11-No Telos meaning no teleology dont study human beings or any part of nature by postulating in that respect is some last ending for them and thinking we can find a way to get them thither. Hobbes sees once you get something you want you find something else you want and so on and so on. Like calicles. (from another(prenominal) reading calicles is) Hobbes found this through his own introspection. Hobbes knows his swears are different others but he knows their desire for those things are the same. And he knows that he isnt satisfied when he gets what he wants so he knows others are the same way.Hobbes doesnt mean human beings all seek political spot but like calicles the power to get what you want. Being able to arrange the world the way you l ike it. This for hobbes is what is natural. Not a natural ending but a natural beginning. Putting things into motion. Sees it as a physicist. Putting the world into motion. Hobbes says individuals have desires those desires great deal them in motion and once they are set in motion they dont tend to preventive. Humans are particles seeking what they want with other particles ( mess) in the way not always acquire what we want. Its not just politics to Hobbes that are artificial.Many other things are artificial that aristotles thought was natural. MOST IMPORTANTLY IS SPEECH. (ARISTOTLE state SPEECH WAS THE DEFINING NATURAL CH areCTERISITC OF HUMAN BEINGS. HUMANS ARE THE ANIMALS WITH THE NATURAL persona OF SPEAKING AND REASON FOR ARISTOTLE. ) Just about everything except our desires are artificial to Hobbes. delivery is an invention. Hobbes says almost every moral consequence you want to make you leave alone make it through speech which human beings made up so it doesnt tell us a nything. Chapter 4. All moral truths from Hobbes sense are well constructed senses. We have ordered the terms to cable televisionup.The definition the words line up and make sense so it is true and we can define it. CHAPTER 6- best AND EVIL People dissent not because they make mistakes about reasoning which plato would say they disagree because they have different preferences. They see good and evil through their own preferences. You nor I result worship to take each other to what we see fit. What does this mean for politics? Calicles who also thought good and evil were words that concourse made up. Calicles also thought people were smash than others. He thought letting nature work itself out was letting the potent people dominate the weak.HOBBES THINKS PEOPLE ARE NATURALLY EQUALLY. That doesnt mean they are as smart or large or strong or weak. We dont have bear upon desires wehave different desires. All Hobbes means by natural compare is that everyone of us is vulnerable to being killed by others. No human being is strong enough by themselves to secure themselves physically to secure themselves from others. WE ARE physically VULNERABLE MOST ESPECIALLY TO superstar ANOTHER. Human beings are born with physical desires and need power and security to suffice you get your desires. We live in a world with no system we are destined to be apart of like Aristotle thought.We dont settle our differences by appealing to a natural order or moral principles through reason that plato thought we could all agree on. righteous conceptual political conflicts make the world a severe place because if you want catholocism you want it for others not just like chocolate which is for you. Fundamentally human beings are bodies in motion. We pass on not cease unless we come up against counterveiling force. The state of nature is the war of everyman against everyman. Chaos disquietude and war. We cannot look to nature to solve our difficultys because nature is the pr oblem.We are each born with set of desires which are not in agreement with others. THIS IS governmental PROBLEM WHAT IS THE SOLUTION. Reason and justice are just words we need a counter force. Something to bring order to a naturally chaotic system. We need something to make all the particles move in the same direction. The marque signifies the power of the state for Hobbes. thither is a solution that has to be compel just because we are so different. Hobbes understand just how different everyone is and that is a problem. How can you handle the individuality of everyone and make them stop killing eachother when they are left in their natural condition.MUST SET UP A RULE AND GET THEM TO OBEY. We need an incentive that is greater than our natural pulsation of our own desires. Everyone should have their greatest desire being staying alive. So we can enjoy the chocolate or vanilla. We leave alone neer enjoy anything in this world unless we are alive. LECTURE 2/12/14 Hobbes In natur e there is a lack of agreement, trust and language. Life at the state of nature is solitary or nasty brutish and short to hobbes. The problem is fear and the solution is fear. We fear our own death that is good because then we all know we have that in roughhewn.It is coherent to want to cooperate with other people but you can be tricked or betrayed. We also fear that other people wont perform their causes. The solution forget have to be some sort of unity. Pg. 132 chapter 17 You want to do whats right and you want to agree with other people but they may not cooperate. If you fear other people the leader will take that fear away and make you fear him. You will know everyone advertly fears the autonomous and the consequences for non-agreement so they all have reason to agree. Now you fear death from the self-reliant but maybe not as much from other people so now you can make agreements with one another.The mark hangs over all your covenants with one another. No conflilct for h obbes about being afraid and being free. You are in a position to be liberated from the fear of fellow human beings and the state of nature by entering the nation or the artificial state. All you have to do is give up your will to one man or one group of men. Hobbes thinks its more efficient to have one man do it but it can be a group. Where there is disagreement there is distrust and when there is distrust there is violence and war. By all of us agreeing to let one person speak then when he speaks thats it he has spoken for all of us.Even if we have disagreements it doesnt matter politically he has spoken and that is it. The population of the leviathan allows us to make deals and agreements with one another about property etc We need a form of agreement that ends the problem so we can live in a fundamentally functioning artificial state. We can create an object of mutual fitting simultaneous fear. If you can create a state that equally and simultaneously affrightens everyone wi th austere penalties when they break the law you create the surmise of law which doesnt exist in the state of nature. It is not a affectionate covenant that protects your rights.It is about a govt defend your body and your life. Not your rights. You fear govt because it has tremendous power but you are felicitous it does because it keeps everyone else in line and for yourself you know what to do. If you are a good person in the first place nothing is necessarily being taken away. Yes there is a sword over your head but it brings a situation you wanted anyway. Pg. clxx acquaintance of the subject lies in the silence of the laws In nature you had the right to anything as far as hobbes was concerned. By placing everybodys rights in one central place you get back security. Law for hobbes is prohibition.Thou, shall, not kill steal etc Law and rights are opposite. The more rights you have the less law the more law the less rights. Punishments dont need to be buy at and laws don t need to be harsh. Whatever the leviathan does not prohibit you are as free as the state of nature to do what you want to do. The self-directed needs to equally enforce in fear the violation of the law crosswise a wide range of territory. The crowned head does need to be absolute. Pg. 132 ch. 17 If the sovereign is not absolute the problem is not figure out. Without a unity of will the problem isnt solved thats why the sovereign needs to make all the laws.Also the sovereign needs to control all doctrines. Leviathan doesnt care what you think or weigh it only cares what you say because it gets them riled up and people think they know whats right which leads them to cause problems. Is it bad to have govt control whats printed and distributed? Hobbes thinks its best(p) than civil war. Hobbes thought everyone who had experienced the terror of civil war and everyman against everyman would take the leviathan. The radix of this is the fact that we all want to live. What threatens le viathan? Competition, bashfulness and renown.Diffidence is hobbes word for distrust. Glory and what hobbes sometimes calls vain glory is different because it pertains to a different type of good. Some materially desires can be solved without much difficulty like fashion and water. If we all want land that is a bit of a problem. We can solve that problem with a law telling us what land we get. It is a clear solution it solves the problem if we have a sword that is good enough. Being famous, being important, being well known, being socially elevated and prominent. Those are things that cannot easily be colonized by law. Although laws can help them. knowledge base food water air can be distributed but winning cant be distributed. Only one person can win. Only one person can be prime rector etc Not everyone can be a movie star because if everyone was nobody would be. almost people are intellectual with air water and food and land but some people want to be special and these for h obbes are the most severe people because some want glory so bad they will run a risk their lives for it. Some people want what they want even to the point of death. Anti bygone is someone who cares about something to the point where she is willing to give up her life for it.The antigones to hobbes are the most dangerous people. They are dangerous and make all of us insecure because the point of his threat was not to induce the fear in the law abiding person but to get you to understand everyone else in the state will abide and will be trustworthy. If the threat is not going to deter all then the system is going to break worst. Thats what Hobbes thought happened in the English civil war about religion. Leviathan is a plea for rationality. The rational caculation to encourage your own life above all other things. There is no natural cure for nature.Letting people do their own thing will not turn into some spontaneous social agreement mostly because they cannot trust each other eve n if it is in both of their interest to do so. A popular fear is a sharing experience. You also experience ruling and being ruled at the same time. There is also a sense that the sovereign is all of us. (a bunch of little bodies that make up the leviathan) Hobbes is serious when he says it is a unity. Yes you give up in your rights to the sovereign but you also partake in the sovereign. The sovereign did not exist until you and I agree to give in and make it so.The body of the sovereign is our collective bodies. For hobbes our bodies are what we have in joint. We are free to disagree about everything so long as we dont have a single person to speak for us. The sword is a dictionary or a set of meanings that are legal and punishable not right and wrong. The sword hangs over our head but in our hand we get a dictionary which tells us whit is legal and illegal. Leviathan is also a solution to the moral and linguistic chaos in the state of nature where we dont agree on anything We ca n also have freedom and liberty as hobbes understands these terms.Not rights. Rights are what you have to give up to have the fare and experience of liberty. Febraury 19th, 2014 ROUSSEAU THE SOCIAL CONTRACT oft appointed to a reason for the french Revolution. Pg. 53 on thrall- We are not going to look anymore at govt nature but we are going to assume all people are equal in nature. ramp can create something but it cant create anything right. If there is going to be something in charge it has to be a covenant. (similar to Hobbes) Govt remains with ROUSSEAU something artificial. Rosseau hates hobbes and Aristotle because they are theorists of slavery.Rosseau says there cannot be any such thing as legitimate slavery. If politics isnt going to have a moral function for Rosseau than it isnt worth talk of the town or arguing about. Aristotle theorized a natural slavery but for rosseau hobbes theorized an artificial slavery. thrall under the sovereign. Rosseau says human beings wou ld never acquiesce to slavery by contract. Government has to be by consent and government has to n some sense respect the equality of every person. How to we avoid Hobbes problem of individuals having problems with everyone? Rosseau is not interested in devising a science of politics.Rosseau resembles plato because he wants to work promptly in the language of reason. The book is full of historical examples. Comparative lessons on political institutions that have worked in the past. Human beings have a special moral capacity which is another reason why slavery is intolerable to him. HOW IS ROSSEAU GOING TO CREATE A SOCIAL CONTRACT THAT IS MORAL AND IS found ON CONSENT? Pg. 60 if each of us takes individual rights against the state then we will end up back in a state of nature. Rosseau says the only thing that can work is the total alienation of every individual.The alienation of ones rights to the whole confederacy. Hobbes said one gave himself to one man or an assembly of men. A contract that is completely neutral. We are all equal before and after but the nature of our equality has changed. After we are equal beings in this conjunction or modern being and we all remain as equal as we are before. The difficulty with this is how does anyone decide what to do. We havent solved the problem of how we decide. Pg. 69- beginning of book 2 If we are going to give everything up to the community rosseau thinks there must be a reason to do it.common interest or the ecumenic will. It is not just a series of desires that we happen to share. When there is no lamb there is no family. Love sustains a family. Even though families go through the motions and divulge with legal forms there is no love so there is a difference. The widely distributed will is to the state what love is to the family. The excite spirit that sustains it and creates and and without it there can be no such thing as a state. Being a member of a family doesnt mean you dont have your own opinio ns or interests that may conflict with other members of the family. exclusively being members with a real amiable family there is a time you set those interests and opinions to one side because you care about the fundamental well being of the others in your family so you set those things aside. The development of your reason and your realization of your common interest go together naturally as early human animals what you lack is not a set of interest but a rational capacity to understand the convergency of your interest with everybody elses. Our interest dont change but we realize those interests can be realized beter collectively than they can be singly.The ecumenical will exists so long as we continue to believe and support and develop these common interests in the same way the family continues to exist as they believe and support and develop the common view of that family. When you think you are breach off without another person it is over even if you go through the motions for a decade after this thought. (likewise for rosseau with a state if we are not committed to them it will not exist even if there is parliament it will be an release form with no general will. ) standing(a) behind the social contract isan active spirit that makes the contract possible but it is only possible for a human being. Animals cannot share in a general will because they dont have language and cannot reason together. The general will is meant to be at one in the same time a merchandise of reason and a product of some kind of spirit. You cant see it like love in a family you just kind of know that it is there. Rosseau tended to idealize little communities. This kind of political community he is proposing is not well suiting for larger states. Rosseau thinks this is what it takes to actually have a state in which people remain free.You do what you need to do because you are happy to be a member of that organization. No one is holding a artillery to your head. Even if you are not excite to perform the task when you want to do it you understand the non-performance would be letting down your fellows in the community and you dont want tthat to happen because you value the community and the members in that community. All of us have some communities in which we are volitionally apart. The only way a community of equals can be governed is if it is governed by the general will. It will be governed by voter turnout by a community that rosseau imagines.It is very different from absolute majority rule. There is in rosseaus republic majority decision making but not majority rule. The point of the assembly is to discover what the general will is to rosseau. You agree to be bound by the majority because it is the only practical decision role. You go along with the decision of the majority because you think they share the same interest of the common good. When you lose that feeling that you are all there for the common aim then the state is gone and then you dont have a good reason to go along with the majority anymore.The shared purpose is gone and you are back to the state of nature where shared individuals have nothing in common. States can fall apart because people dont have common interest they can also fall apart because there is not unvarying interaction. Liberty is what you get when you have the general will in place. The general will is not the same thing as love or patriotism but it is similar to it. The spirit that animates you as you act as a citizen as counterbalance to a private individual.