SOCSCI 2 — Flashcard Reviewer: Political Thinkers, Concepts, Definitions, and Quotations

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the key political thinkers (Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill), their core concepts, theories of the state and nature, works, and famous quotations.

Social Contract Framework

Framework explaining the emergence and legitimacy of the state through an agreement or arrangement among people.

Human Nature

Innate human behavior; how humans behave.

State of Nature

The condition of human beings before or without government.

Social Contract

An explanation for the emergence and authority of the state, offering an alternative to the divine-right justification of monarchs.

State

An institution created to address problems arising under natural conditions.

Freedoms of Men

The freedoms people retain after entering a social contract and creating a state.

Thomas Hobbes

Political thinker associated with Leviathan, the state of war, covenant, and an absolute sovereign.

Leviathan

Hobbes's work and the sovereign power that holds secular and ecclesiastical authority.

Secular and Ecclesiastical Power

Civil or worldly authority and religious authority; in the reviewer, both are held by Hobbes's Leviathan.

Hobbes's method of understanding society

Understand human beings first, then understand society by understanding its parts.

Hobbes's view of human nature

Humans are free, equal, and independent; they are driven by passions, seek power, fear violent death, and can reason.

Liberty in Hobbes

The absence of external impediments when a person decides, thinks, or acts.

Equality in Hobbes

People are physically and mentally equal enough that differences in ability do not make one person naturally superior in every respect.

Passions

Motivations that shape human behavior in Hobbes's account.

Desires

Things a person likes or wants and therefore regards as good.

Aversions

Things a person dislikes or avoids and therefore regards as bad.

Power in Hobbes

The currency through which people pursue their desires; people seek power throughout life.

Fear of violent death

A central fear that motivates people to seek peace and leave the state of war.

Hobbes's state of nature

A condition of freedom, equality, and independence characterized by war, lack of common morality, and reason.

State of war (Hobbes)

A condition described as one person against every other person.

Competition for gain

One cause of conflict in Hobbes's state of nature, especially when people cannot share what they seek.

Glory

A cause of conflict arising from the desire for reputation.

Diffidence

A cause of conflict arising from distrust and the desire for safety.

Common morality in Hobbes's state of nature

Absent; there is no shared standard of right and wrong.

Hobbes's laws/articles of reason

Rules of reason directing people toward peace and mutually agreed restraints when peace is possible.

Hobbes's first article of reason

Seek peace when there is hope of attaining it.

Hobbes's second article of reason

Be willing to give up a right when others are willing to give up the same right.

Hobbes's third article of reason

Keep promises; promise-keeping is part of a covenant.

Hobbes's assessment of life in the state of war

'The life of man is poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'

Covenant

Hobbes's term for the social contract, in which people authorize a sovereign in exchange for safety and peace.

Hobbes's social contract

People authorize a person or assembly to govern, motivated by fear of violent death and reason's pursuit of peace.

Authorization of the sovereign

The people authorize the sovereign's actions by surrendering their right to govern themselves.

Hobbes's state: inalienable

The sovereign power given to the Leviathan should not be taken back.

Hobbes's state: indivisible

Dividing sovereign power destroys the central authority needed to prevent civil war.

Hobbes's state: infallible

In the reviewer's account, the state cannot be wrong.

Hobbes's state: absolute

People should obey what the state commands; this model depends on believing society is in a state of war.

Hobbes on remaining liberty

'Wherever the law is silent, there is liberty.'

Natural right to life (Hobbes)

People retain a right to preserve their own lives.

Self-incrimination (Hobbes)

A freedom listed in the reviewer as remaining with individuals.

John Locke

Political thinker associated with Second Treatise of Government, natural rights, consent, limited government, and the right to revolt.

Second Treatise of Government

Locke's major work discussed in the reviewer.

Locke's view of human nature

Humans are free, equal, and independent; they have natural rights to property and are rational but partial to themselves.

Equality in Locke

People are equal because they belong to the same biological species.

Freedom and independence in Locke

No one's will should overpower or be imposed on another; freedom includes disposing of oneself.

Natural right to Property (capital P)

Locke's broad use of Property to mean life, liberty, and property.

Private property (small p)

A person's property or estate; the reviewer explains that labor, body, and life begin in common and labor makes something one's own.

Spoilage limitation

Locke's limit on private property: property should not spoil.

Reason and partiality (Locke)

People have reason but also biases and prejudices that can lead them to justify their own interests.

Locke's state of nature

A state of freedom, equality, and independence that is marked by inconveniences rather than being inherently a state of war.

State of inconveniences

Locke's description of the state of nature, especially the difficulty of securely enjoying natural property rights.

Locke's state of war

Begins when someone attempts to place another person under absolute power; it can occur even outside the state of nature.

Locke's quote on state of war

'That he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him.'

Common interpreter of the law

The missing institution in Locke's state of nature; people form civil society to address this problem.

Civil society (Locke)

People associating to solve shared problems before establishing a government to interpret the law.

Locke's social contract

An agreement in which people give up their individual right to interpret the law, not their entire right to govern themselves.

Consent (Locke)

The basis of legitimate government; people can withdraw consent when government fails its purpose.

Locke's government

Limited and constitutional, established to protect natural rights, especially property.

Legislative power

The branch that makes and interprets law; described in the reviewer as the heart of government.

Executive power

The power that implements or carries out the law.

Federative power

The power to manage relations with other states, including war, peace, and foreign relations.

Constitutional government

A government whose powers and relationships are structured by a constitution that also describes the people's powers.

Fiduciary trust

The trust-based relationship between civil society and government in Locke's account.

Locke's first state limitation

Government must govern according to established, promulgated laws.

Locke's second state limitation

Laws must be designed for the good of the people.

Locke's third state limitation

Government cannot take property without the owner's consent, including through taxation.

Locke's fourth state limitation

Government cannot transfer the power of making laws into other hands.

Right to revolt (Locke)

People may take back governmental power when government violates the conditions that make it legitimate.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Political thinker associated with the noble savage, inequality, the general will, the free state, and civil religion.

Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts

Rousseau's work discussed in the reviewer, arguing that arts and sciences contribute to inequality.

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men

Rousseau's work examining humanity's natural condition and the development of inequality.

Rousseau's noble savage

The naturally free, equal, independent, compassionate human being who has few needs and lives largely apart from others.

Rousseau's view of human nature

Humans are free, equal, and independent; potentially rational, self-perceptive, compassionate, and easily satisfied.

Potential rationality (Rousseau)

Humans possess reason but do not use it constantly because they encounter limited occasions requiring it.

Self-perception (Rousseau)

The capacity to notice changes in the environment and adjust to them.

Nobility/compassion (Rousseau)

The capacity to recognize others' distress and respond compassionately.

Rousseau's basic needs

Nourishment, sexual needs, and repose or rest.

Rousseau's state of nature

A state of freedom, equality, and independence characterized by innocence and bliss, without settled life, law, reason, or quarrels.

Rousseau on the origins of civil society

A series of accidents and changing social conditions led to more frequent interaction, dependence, and civil society.

Private property and inequality (Rousseau)

The establishment of private property and dependence on one another contributed to inequality among people.

Rousseau's quote on private property

'The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into his head to say this is mine…'

Rousseau's view of the social contract

The social contract legitimizes the 'chains' created by social dependence and the state; it is not simply a product of an actual social agreement.

Rousseau's quote on freedom and chains

'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.'

Rousseau's problem of association

Find a form of association that protects each person and their goods while allowing each person to remain as free as before.

Free state (Rousseau)

A political association in which people participate directly in making laws and, by obeying those laws, obey their own will.

Individual capacity (Rousseau)

The capacity to think about what is good for oneself and one's own interests.

Corporate capacity (Rousseau)

The capacity to consider others and the interests of the whole community.

General will

The community-oriented will that considers the common good rather than merely adding up private interests.

Rousseau on the general will

It is constant, unalterable, and pure, though it can be subordinated when private interests prevail.

Direct participation (Rousseau)

Everyone participates directly in making the law rather than relying on representatives to make it for them.

Obeying one's own will (Rousseau)

In a free state, people obey laws they participated in making, so obedience can preserve freedom.

Law-making and enforcement (Rousseau)

The body that makes laws should not also enforce them.

Rousseau's 'force people to be free'

People may be compelled to obey laws because those laws express the will they participated in forming.

Civil religion (Rousseau)

Shared civic beliefs and duties that guide citizens and help build the nation; religions that tolerate others should be tolerated.

Rousseau's quote on nature

'O man of whatever country you are, whatever your opinions may be, attend to my words…'

John Stuart Mill

Political thinker associated with utilitarianism, On Liberty, the harm/self-regarding principle, and opposition to tyranny of the majority and customs.

Utilitarianism

An approach that evaluates conduct by its consequences for happiness, aiming to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

Jeremy Bentham

The utilitarian thinker identified in the reviewer as John Stuart Mill's father's friend and founder of utilitarianism.

Pain and pleasure

For utilitarianism, the two forces that govern behavior and can help explain or predict it.

Greatest Happiness Principle

The greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.

Mill's distinction from Bentham

The reviewer contrasts Bentham's emphasis on the greatest happiness of the community with Mill's happiness of all concerned.