Social And Political Philosophy
Social And Political Philosophy
1. (a) The statement by Machiavelli in the treatise The Prince expounds one of the theories that an aspiring prince can employ in the acquisition and maintenance of power. When Machiavelli writes about the way live and how they ought to live and what they need to pursue in order to ensure their preservation rather than their downfall, he is elaborating how a prince should behave in relation to his subjects. The statement means that a prince might have many qualities but it is imperative that he should not simply be concerned with the good ones only. The prince might have qualities like mercy, faith, and religion among others but there comes a time when he has to act against these principles when a particularly critical situation makes it necessary for him to do so.
(b) The reason Machiavelli makes this statement is to demonstrate how pragmatic ends rather than humane ends are the most important factors in acquiring and maintaining political power. In dealing with the matters of his state a prince should be aware of the fact that as much as a bad reputation needs to be avoided, it is sometimes necessary in maintaining power.
(c) The statement fits Machiavelli’s principle in which he sees the greatest moral good as being in the stability and virtues of a state regardless of the means used to achieve them.
2. (a) The statement by Thomas Hobbes about war being a time when men live without an authority to lord over them, is his philosophical explanation about the state of nature. His concept of the state of nature is found in Leviathan where he describes a lawless state in which every man has a natural right to do what he wants to in order to preserve his own life.
In the international arena, Hobbes saw nations as exhibiting the same behavior as people do in a state of nature. The absence of law in this state means that there is no injustice except for some natural precepts. Life is brutal and short in the state of nature. Hobbes develops the solution for state of nature by the introduction of civil governments through contracts agreed upon mutually (Sommerville and Santoni 143).
(b) The reason Hobbes makes this statement about state of nature is to describe the legitimacy of the state government and the need that they need to fulfill among their citizens. Hobbes saw the establishment of the civil government as the elimination of the state of nature because the civil power acts to enforce contracts.
(c) By equating the state of nature to anarchy, the statement fits Hobbes 17th century philosophical view on the way political and social conditions would be in the absence of the rule of law as described in Leviathan. It suits his claim of uncontrolled freedoms being the necessary conditions for the establishment of social political contracts that create rights and obligations.
He also envisaged the existence of an equivalent power among nations that would lord over nations and deny them the rights to preserve themselves by all means including waging war on others. However such a worldwide civil society is still yet to be realized.
3. (a) John Locke uses the statement about the state of nature requiring a law of nature to govern it as a way of showing the function of Reason. This statement found in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. According to Locke on of the lessons learnt from reason is the need for people to coexist without harming each other in any way, be it in health, liberty or in matters concerned with properties. He sees transgressions of such kinds requiring punishment. Locke’s philosophical stand on the state of nature is in line with Christian teachings because it relies mainly on reason. Christianity teaches that we are the possessions of God, we are not our own possessions, and therefore no one should harm another (Sommerville and Santoni 170).
(b) The reason Locke made this statement was to respond to views about the state of nature by other philosophers like Robert Filmer, and possibly Thomas Hobbes though he never explicitly mentioned him. Hobbes’ philosophy on the state of nature does not rely on any theological origin but Locke’s assertion about reason being the law that governs the state of nature introduces a divine authority in the argument.
(c) The reference of reason as being the law that governs the state of nature is in line with Locke’s response to Filmer’s Patriacha theory that was used by the conservative party. The Whigs who did not want face another prosecution by Anglicans and Protestants adopted Locke’s theory because it clearly stated why a monarchy that abused its office could morally and legally be overthrown or made to vacate office. The theory suited their argument that even the monarchy was subjected to laws by the Maker and when it acted in contravention of these laws by harming its subjects in health, restraint of liberty, or in matters concerned wit possessions, it could be overthrown.
4. (a) By stating that renouncing of liberty was the same as renouncing the qualities of a person which can not be compensated for and this renunciation being against the nature of man, Jean-Jacques Rousseau meant that no man had a natural authority over others. He argued that the establishment of an absolute authority that demanded unlimited obedience from its subjects as a solution to the state of nature existence was a contradiction and vanity by all means.
He describes the priceless value of freedom and liberty and shows how giving up one’s natural rights in order to become a subject of a king is slavery in another name. However Rousseau points out that these conditions of nature force people to enter a state of society through the establishment of a civil society (Sommerville and Santoni 209).
(b) Jean-Jacques Rousseau took this position to challenge Thomas Hobbes views on the establishment of civil governments as the solution to the lawlessness in a state of nature existence. Rousseau demonstrates how Hobbes is wrong in imagining socialized people as living in ideal societies different from the ones they were raised in.
Rousseau also seeks to show how the establishment of civil governments as a way of safeguarding liberty only ends up working against the same principles by demanding subjects to give up their rights.
(c) The statement about the futility of the state unjustly demanding renunciation of liberty as a way to establishing law and order serves to confirm Rousseau’s argument that people are neither good nor bad. In the initial stage men have no knowledge about vice or virtue because they have not yet been exposed to such concepts until they enter the society. All the habits they acquire whether good or bad are as a result of civilization.
Works Cited
Sommerville, John, and Ronald Santoni. Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato toGandhi. New York: Anchor Books, 1963.
