Basic issue: Freedom of the human mind to determine what is best for ourselves vs the State
Who should teach the citizens?
Socrates “The unexamined life is not worth living”
Socrates in the Apology - Moral integrity vs the law
Socrates in the Crito takes the City’s argument and argues against himself. He notes the disobedience to the law is detrimental to the society.
The Republic is about the will of the majority vs the reason of the philosophers
Rulers those who make the rights vs the ruled
Plato wanted eliminate the differences between the sexes and wanted them to study together. AdvoxTed education of women and emancipation from the household. He didn’t see why there would Be differences job performance between men and women but...
“The first of these waves is, you remember, the restrictions on private property, even the abolition of private property. The second, the abolition of the family, and the third wave being the establishment of the philosopher kings”
“that. Furthermore, their marriages and their procreations will be, he tells us, for the sake of the city. There is nothing like romantic love among the members of the guardian class. Sexual relations will be intended purely for the sake of reproduction and unwanted fetuses will be aborted. The only exception to this prohibition is for members of the guardian class who are beyond the age of reproduction, he tells us, and they, he says, can have sex if they're still able, with anyone they like. A kind of version of recreational sex as a reward for a lifetime of self-control. Child-bearing may be inevitable for women but the rearing of the child will be the responsibility of the community or at least a class of guardians and common daycare centers. A sort of variation of Hillary Clinton's book that "it takes a village to raise a child," comes right out of Plato apparently. No child should know their biological parents and no parent should know their child. The purpose of this scheme being to eliminate senses of mine and me, to promote a kind of common sense of esprit de corps among the members of the[…]”
Excerpt From
Philosophers and Kings: Plato, Republic, V
Steven B. Smith
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“regime, his regime typology is, to say, his division of power, his division of regimes and to the rule of the one, the few and the many is based not only on how powers are distributed in a purely factual way, he also distinguishes between regimes that are well ordered, well governed, and those that are corrupt. What does he mean in terms of this distinction? Aristotle's distinction seems to be not only empirical, again, based on the factual distribution of powers. It seems to have a--what we might call today a normative component to it, it makes a distinction or a judgment between the well-ordered and the deviant regimes, the corrupt regimes. On the one side, he tells us, the well ordered regimes are monarchy, aristocracy and what he calls polity, rule of the one, the few, and the many, and on the corrupt side he calls, he describes them as tyranny, oligarchy and democracy also ruled by the one, the few, and the many”
Excerpt From
The Mixed Regime and the Rule of Law: Aristotle, Politics, IV
Steven B. Smith
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“He writes, "The nations in cold locations, particularly in Europe, are filled with spiritedness." There is that platonic word again, thumos, are filled with thumos, "but lacking in discursive thought," lacking in the deliberative element in other words. Hence, they remain free because they're thumotic, but they lack political governance. "Those in Asia, on the other hand," he writes, thinking probably here of Persia, places like Egypt and Persia, "have souls endowed with discursive thought but lack spiritedness, lack thumos, hence they remain ruled and enslaved.”
Excerpt From
The Mixed Regime and the Rule of Law: Aristotle, Politics, IV
Steven B. Smith
This material may be protected by copyright.
Aristotle saw he importance of geography and social classes in politics. “He writes, "The nations in cold locations, particularly in Europe, are filled with spiritedness." There is that platonic word again, thumos, are filled with thumos, "but lacking in discursive thought," lacking in the deliberative element in other words. Hence, they remain free because they're thumotic, but they lack political governance. "Those in Asia, on the other hand," he writes, thinking probably here of Persia, places like Egypt and Persia, "have souls endowed with discursive thought but lack spiritedness, lack thumos, hence they remain ruled and enslaved.”
Excerpt From
The Mixed Regime and the Rule of Law: Aristotle, Politics, IV
Steven B. Smith
This material may be protected by copyright.
Natural rights are mutable?
We are political animals because of our ability to speak (not an ontological quality)
Seems to indicate the tradition and Laws determine justice - subjective
Aristotle focuses on phronesis- practical reason
Believes in division ignorance power by class not for personal liberty but for the good of the city
Aristotle – Man is a political animal
Politics is about conflict (partisan and between others). Not about economic conflict a la Marx, but about who rules. The rulers vs the ruled. Rich over poor, etc.
The regime is about the distribution of power between cities and famously between the one, few, and many
Kindness, mutual affection, loyalty, and trust (philiaI) hold citizenry together.
Is talking about a post-Holy Roman Empire secular society
Armed prophets have changed societies. The old princes are rulers from inheritance; the new princes are ones who seize it.
Looks at politics from a extraordinary / extreme circumstances - just surviving?
Virtue is a key theme and by it means something akin to manliness.
His ethics is about pagan worldliness vs Christian innoncence. He says Christianity makes the world weak his word is “effeminate”
Men must use force to take over.
If you don’t want to get your hands dirty in politics get out of the day. Jean Paul Sartre’s problem of dirty hands
The new prince must know how to use cruelty
“The new prince, as we've seen, must know how to use religion but needs to learn how not to be used by religion, must not become a dupe of the religious. He must know how to use religious passions and sentiments but not be used by them.
Politics must become a purely worldly affair. It should not be limited or constrained by any transcendent standards or moral laws that do not derive from politics itself, whether a law of God or some kind of transcendent moral order or code. Machiavelli's warning, we might say today, to the religious right, or his critique of the religious right, cannot make politics conform to transcendent moral law. But not only did Machiavelli bring a new worldliness to politics, he also introduced a new kind of populism, you might say. Plato and Aristotle imagined aristocratic republics that would invest power in an aristocracy of education and virtue. Machiavelli deliberately seeks to enlist the power of the people against aristocracies of education and virtue. He is a kind of proto-democrat almost who sought to re-create, not through accident and chance, but through planning and design a new kind of republic in the modern world”
Excerpt From
New Modes and Orders: Machiavelli, The Prince (chaps. 13-26)
Steven B. Smith
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Man can conquer fortuna 50% if the time
Hobbes
Man’s natural state / nature is conflict and war
War of all against all bella omnum contra omnes
Brought forward the idea of individuality even Tocqueville in the 19th century thought it a novel idea
Anti-Aristotle who thought man had a telos (final cause)
Materialistic and skeptical in his epistemology
Wanted to know what are the grounds for authority
Fear and pride are man’s basic emotions
Believes there can be a god and revelation, but that revelation cannot be verified
Hobbessian citizen looks out for self and is risk adverse. Does not understand doing things for honor. Does not understand rushing into save the day risking life and limb. Bourgeois morality? There is a tension for who will be the fireman in this Hobbessian society.
Modern language of politics individual rights over duty, the sovereign working for the lowly.
Really came up with the idea of the individual.
States also are “individuals” who can be in conflict as there are no higher authorities to adjudicate between them.
Believed in an absolute sovereign monarch (not very popular)
Locke
Natural Law - right to self preservation. Melded Cicero's natural rights with Christianity's imago dei/Creation of God
Coined - Life liberty and estate (property)
Had a positive view (?) of the state of nature. Debated whether our natural laws have a theological origin
He says we are naturally prone to own property as opposed to Plato and Aristotle. We are a "property owning" animal
Our labor is important
Big proponent / originator of property rights - We are born with property - Our bodies!
Consumerism softens people.
He is the godfather of Adam Smith and of capitalism
Consent of the governed (implicit or explicit)
Division of power. Legislative > executive.
Executive branch does need the prerogative to overrule laws in times of need
Stated that the people have a right to revolution (can appeal to the heavens) if rulers become corrupt (a la the American revolution and King George).
Rousseau
Thought experiment what is man like in his natural state? He is good it is only society that corrupts him
Authority is given by the people (and so they can revolt against it? A la French Revolution?)
Man is a sensitive animal - big influence on Romanticism
Social contract
General will. We much total give ourselves over to the general will.
We are most free when we obey the laws of the general will (republican idea if freedom vs Lockean liberal view of freedom)
Man is born free but is everywhere in chains.
The state is bad as it imposes things in individuals.
Believed in a civil religion (very anti-Christian).
Tocqueville
Wary of popular sovereignty and the tyranny of the majority as well as democratic despotism. Aristotle also warned of democratic tyranny
Believes that religion was necessary for society
Three important things in American democracy the township/local government , religion.
“Secondly, Tocqueville takes it to be a terrible mistake to try to eliminate religion or to secularize society all together. This is, in fact, probably a more controversial, a very controversial claim. It was his belief, and again, perhaps here he's influenced by Rousseau in the chapter on civil religion at the end of the Social Contract that free societies rest on public morality and that morality cannot be effective without religion. It may be true that individuals can derive moral guidance from reason alone, but societies can't. The danger of attempting to eliminate religion from public life is that the need or desire to believe will therefore be transferred to other and far more dangerous outlooks. "Despotism," he says, "can do without faith, but freedom cannot." A very arresting sentence. "Despotism can do without faith, but freedom cannot." "Religion is more necessary in a republic and in a democratic country than any other," he says.”
Excerpt From
Democratic Statecraft: Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Steven B. Smith
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