IB Philosophy HL - Term 3 Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy

An area of philosophy that focuses on the study of societies and the rights and obligations of people. Also the demand for justice equality and liberty.

state

A political entity that posses sovereignty and is not subject to higher political authority. An opposing idea is if state sovereignty should be challenged by institutions like the UN or ICC.

nation

A group of people who share an ethnicity of culture and were born in the same area governed by the same laws. An opposing idea is what group of people constitutes a nation for example the Aboriginal people have no nation in Australia. Also there are no nations for migrants.

government

A way of creating and enforcing laws through a bureaucratic hierarchy. An opposing idea is if a government that is corrupt or changes laws in its own interest still a legitimate government.

Civil society/civil institution

The total of all civil and social organisations that form a functioning society. These can include political parties, sports clubs and common interest groups. Can also be in a more abstract way like shared moral values. An opposing idea here is what organisations are essential for a functioning society and what relation should they have to the governement.

Anarchism

This theory is against all forms of authority and institutions. It says these institutions maintain coercion and hierarchy.

Liberalism

This view is based on the rights of individuals and their liberty. It focuses on consent of the government, equality and right to property. Is split into positive and negative liberty. Negative liberty is a freedom from something like coercion or government interference. Positive liberty is a freedom to do something and act as you will.

Socialism

Economic and political theory that emphasises social ownership over private ownership in the economy and social systems. Karl Marx had his own socialist theory called scientific socialism. This theory sees socialism as a stepping stone to the goal of a communist society which is classless and stateless.

Totalitarianism

This form of government prohibits opposing political parties and political ideas. It controls the public and social spheres of a society.

Conservatism

This ideology promotes the preservation of traditional values and institutions. This varies based on culture.

Nationalism

This ideology sees the state and the nation as the same thing. Its goal is to promotes the interests of a particular nation with the goal of maintaining sovereignty.

Fascism

Far right, authoritarian and ultranationalist view. It has a dictatorial leader, militarism and forcible suppression of the opposition.

Political obligation and consent

Political obligation is the obligation to obey the law without some kind of moral justification, just based on the fact that it’s the law. Hume argued this could be justified through rationality and acting out of one’s self interest because obeying benefits us. Although this has been refuted by saying an obligation is something you are bound to so it has to be more than a rational decision. Consent is the way these obligations are acquired. First is explicit consent, this is the strongest form and requires individuals to consent to the rule of law. Although Locke saw this as unlikely because we are born into societies and this never happens. Voting can also be seen as an act of consent. This only works with the acceptance of the state, even if I vote, then it cannot be considered consent. This is an example of tacit consent because consent is not explicitly given, but implied. Lastly is hypothetical consent where consent is rational because of our creation of the state in the state of nature. This has many short falls, just because it is rational to consent doesn’t mean I do. Also, just because you would rationally consent in the state of nature doesn’t mean you would consent in the current state.

Democracy

The people choose their leaders by voting. An example of this is direct democracy in ancient greece where one person would cast one vote on a matter like going to war. A more modern form is representative democracy where people vote for representative who vote on these decisions. These new democracies are either presidential, parliamentary or both. Presidential democracies are where people vote on a leader and who should represent them in congress. In a parliamentary democracy people vote on members of parliament and the party with the most members vote among themselves of the leader. Combinations of these two exists like France where the present chooses a prime minister to work with the parliament. Most democracies also operate within federalism where some of the power is handed to local governments.

Authoritarian government

Here only one person or a small group is in charge. Elections in these countries are rarely fair which leaves the population with no say. Authoritarian governments make decisions much faster and are better at growing the economy.

Marxism

A philosophy that highlights communism and socialism over capitalism and the divide between the working and ownership class. First outlined in “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This theory says that conflict between classes is what will bring down capitalism, ultimately leading to a communist society. A criticism of this theory is that there has never been a society where there was not competition so this idea is unworkable.

Retributive justice

A backward looking justice theory, it justifies punishment as a response to crimes. Kant argues for this from the perspective of revenge, that doing wrong deserves punishment like capital punishment for murder.

Deterrence

A forward looking theory. Internal deterrence is supposed to teach that crime is not worth while and stop reoffending . External deterrence argues that punishment is what will stop criminals from commiting crimes. Utilitarians argue for this view because it stops criminals and other people from commiting crimes.

Social protection

This is the idea that because criminals have harmed people in the past they need to be stopped from having that ability. An example of this is prision.

Reform/rehabilitation

Argues that punishment will help change criminals so they won’t offend in the future. Utilitarians have also argued for rehabilitation, this relies of criminals being seen as sick and their actions being out of their control.

Substantive law

A law that governs rights and obligations. It deals with the legak relationship between people.

Procedural law

The method that substantive law is administered. Deals with the proceedings of the court and the rules around that.

Crime and punishment

Crimes are more than just wrong doings, they are things society has a whole has accepted are wrong. So punishment is a way of protecting a society from these people that do wrong by them as a whole.

Deserving punishment

The idea that punishment satisfies society’s emotions of anger toward criminals. But is it ok to do this if it is not ok for me to hit someone when I am angry. This also includes the idea that punishment communicates societies condemnation of an action.

Distributive justice

This is related to the allocation of resources and is linked to equality and liberty. Plato agreed with this theory and called it merit justice. He said justice to the state is the same as the individual and the harmony between the two is essential for a successful society. But this means the concern of the individual becomes secondary. He used this idea to justify slavery, because they held this secondary role they had minimal rights. He believed everyone had a place in universe and that justice was you serving in that place. Aristotle gives a similar defense based on this theory. He said that slaves were good for society and that they are naturally meant to be that way and would be unhappy if they weren’t slaves. This rigid idea of classes goes against a modern sense of egalitarianism because we believe all people should be equal. This is justice as equality.

Justice

Justice deals with distribution and retribution, distribution of resources and crime and punishment.

Justice as Social Utility

The idea that justice promotes general welfare in the sense of the principle of utility. In the creation of laws it is a policy that more happiness for the greatest amount of citizens. Mill argued that utility had a big role to play in justice. An example of this is a surgeon and a homeless person in line to get a heart. People are all for equality until faced with a problem like this.

Justice based on need and ability

Karl Marx proposed the socialist view on distributive justice of “for each accounting for his ability, for each according to his need”. This is a justice related to jobs a task where those who are unskilled are given easy tasks and those who are highly skilled are given more difficult ones.

Justice in Welfare Liberalism

Rawls argues that the principles of justice that should govern society are those chosen by people under the veil of ignorance or with no personal agenda. This would remove principles that are biased like ones that favour rich over poor. He also argues these principles must be fair to everyone and apply to all in the same way. This berings in the idea of the social contract and how by living in a society we are agreeing to these terms of justice. Additionally, he believes that desirable jobs should be open to all on the basis of equal opportunity because society should provide everyone with the same level of education. This idea raises the concern of unfairness, what happens if you are more qualified to do something than someone else, why are they given the same opportunity.

Justice in Classical Liberalism

Robert Nozick was one of the biggest critics of Rawls. He agreed that the political space should be as equal as possible. But Nozick said that Rawls’s patterned theory of taking from people who had more and giving to people who have less was an unjust use of force and coercion.

Justice a Feminist Perspective

The idea that justice is biased because it had exclusively been conducted in the male voice. The ideas of reason, impartiality and equality are rooted in masculinity and require a feminine perspective.

Tolerance

This idea of tolerance is commonly know as a paradox in philosophy. An example of this comes form the first amendment in the bill of rights which protects the right to freedom of speech. But what if someone uses this right to limit a groups rights or are hateful. But suppressing one’s rights to say these things undermines the idea of free speech. The question is when do intolerant ideas become not tolerable. Karl Popper said that a society that tolerates intolerant ideas becomes intolerant. Although it is a paradox there are many arguments in favour of tolerance. Like the idea tolerance prevents strife because there is less disagreement. Also the idea Locke proposed that coercion is ineffective so you would never be able to force someone to believe something so tolerance is the only option. Mills talks about the value of diversity and how intolerance gets rid of that because there is no room for new ideas. The main object to this is the assumption that people are willing to learn from each other so this sharing of ideas may not be worth the possible hate speech

Rights

Rights are a modern political idea that is the claim of entitlement to something. These can split into legal rights which come from the government and universal rights which come the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and apply to everyone regardless of religion, language, ethnicity or any other factors. Rights are either 1st generation (civil and political rights), 2nd generation (economic, social and cultural) and 3rd generation (rights for special groups).

Positive and Negative Liberty

Negative liberty is the absence of constraints and is a freedom from something like coercion or oppression. Positive liberty is the ability to act on one’s own will and to realize one’s potential and achieve a goal. An example of these liberties comes from the idea of minimum wage and how it is worker’s positive liberties. But this could be a negative liberty for businesses.

Civil Disobedience

The act of deliberately disobeying the law is a form of nonviolent protest against a perceived injustice. Thoreau believed in this because he was an advocate for original thought and not following a leader blindly. A modern example of this is the aboriginal tent embassy.

Censorship

Is the suppression of free speech or information that could be considered objectionable or harmful by authorities. Mills is against this view and says that free speech is essential to the progress of a society and that harmful ideas help clarify the truth. Hobbes held the opposite view and thought strong authority was necessary to maintain order. A pro-censorship example is the Chinese government controlling information on the internet through a firewall.

Freedom of Information

The right to access information held by the government that is important to uphold transparency and democracy. An example of this idea is the Julian Assange case in relation to the release of documents on wikileaks.