Social Philosophy - LECTURES

What is power in political philosophy?

The ability to command, steer, and control

What are the three main types of power discussed?

State power (vertical), Economic power (structural), Disciplinary power (micro-meso, rather horizontal)

What is the state according to Max Weber?

A human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory

What is the general purpose of the state?

To establish order and security through law, enforcement, and a defined territory

What characterized political order before the modern state?

Polycentrism, customary law, no monopoly on force, religious justifications, weak public-private distinction

What historical events influenced Hobbes?

The English Civil War, colonialism, early capitalism, scientific revolution, and secularization

How does Hobbes justify state power?

With a secular and scientific foundation rooted in a pessimistic view of human nature

What is Hobbes’ philosophical anthropology?

Humans are material beings in motion, driven by desire and a restless pursuit of power

What is felicity in Hobbes' theory?

The ongoing success in achieving the objects of desire

What are the three causes of conflict according to Hobbes?

Competition (for gain), distrust (for safety), and glory (for reputation)

What is the state of nature?

A hypothetical condition of constant fear and violence where life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'

Why is the state of nature not a historical account?

It is a thought experiment used to illustrate the consequences of life without regulating power

What is the right of nature?

The freedom to do anything necessary for one’s own survival

What is the law of nature?

A general rule discovered by reason aimed at creating peace, such as keeping covenants

What is the social contract?

A collective agreement to transfer individual power to a sovereign for peace and security

What is the commonwealth?

An artificial person or institution (a 'mortal God') created by the social contract to ensure unity and coercion

Why must the sovereign have coercive power?

Because without enforcement, there is no law

What is authorized by the sovereign according to Hobbes?

All actions and judgments of the sovereign are treated as if they are the actions of each subject

What does Hobbes say about morality and law?

They are products of the contract and state power, not natural phenomena

What are critiques of Hobbes' theory?

The state of nature is hypothetical, consent is fictional, and the model may justify authoritarianism

What is Hobbes’ view of power in political philosophy?

Power is the ability to command, steer, and control others. Hobbes sees state power as vertical—top-down authority justified through reason and self-preservation

What are the three key types of power discussed in the lecture?

1. State power (vertical): centralized authority, coercive capacity, Hobbes. 2. Economic power (structural): class-based, tied to production, Marx. 3. Disciplinary power (micro, horizontal): internalized control, Foucault

What is the state, according to Hobbes and Max Weber?

A human institution that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory, designed to establish peace, order, and enforce laws

How did political order function before the modern state?

It was polycentric: power was distributed between nobility, the Church, cities; there was no monopoly on force, law was customary, and public/private boundaries were blurred

What is Hobbes responding to historically?

The chaos of the English Civil War, rise of colonialism and early capitalism, the decline of religious authority, and the emergence of secular scientific worldviews

How does Hobbes seek to justify vertical power?

He offers a secular, rational foundation based on materialist anthropology and collective rationality. He legitimates state power through fear of chaos and the promise of peace

What is Hobbes’ anthropological view of humans?

Humans are material beings in constant motion, driven by desire (felicity), equal in ability, which leads to competition, distrust, and a drive for glory

What is the role of equality in Hobbes’ theory?

Equality of physical and mental ability produces equal hope of success, which, in the context of scarcity, leads to conflict over resources

What are the three causes of conflict in the state of nature?

1. Competition: for gain. 2. Distrust: for safety. 3. Glory: for honor and reputation

What is the state of nature in Hobbes' philosophy?

A hypothetical condition without authority where life is defined by fear, violence, and insecurity. There is no morality, only the pursuit of self-preservation

Why is the state of nature not historical, and what is its purpose?

It’s a thought experiment grounded in human nature. Hobbes uses it to highlight the necessity of an absolute sovereign to prevent collapse into disorder

What is the 'right of nature' according to Hobbes?

The liberty to use any means necessary to preserve one’s life, including violence and deception

What are the 'laws of nature' in Hobbes’ theory?

Rules discovered by reason to escape the state of nature: seek peace, give up some liberty, and keep covenants

What is the purpose of the social contract in Hobbes' theory?

To transfer individual rights to a sovereign authority in exchange for protection and civil peace. It transforms survival into a political community

What is the commonwealth in Hobbes’ theory?

A political body created through contract, where the sovereign represents all and has the authority to enforce laws and ensure order

Why must the sovereign have coercive power?

Without coercion, agreements are meaningless. Law must be enforceable to function; peace depends on the credible threat of punishment

What does Hobbes mean by the sovereign as a 'mortal God'?

The sovereign holds ultimate earthly power, representing the collective will and guaranteeing peace. It is an artificial construct but has real authority

What is Hobbes’ view on morality and justice?

They are not natural but arise from the social contract. Without the state, there is no justice, only raw survival

What are the main critiques of Hobbes’ theory?

1. The state of nature may reflect the logic of the state itself. 2. Consent is hypothetical, not real. 3. Hobbes may justify authoritarianism under the guise of peace

How does Hobbes legitimize vertical power in modern political theory?

By arguing that rational individuals would choose to obey a sovereign to escape the state of nature. The state is a rational construction rooted in fear and reason

What is Marx’s general view of power?

Power operates structurally through economic relations, especially under capitalism, where it is embedded in ownership and labor arrangements

How does Marx define capitalism?

A historical system marked by private ownership of the means of production, wage labor, and competition regulated by the market

What is primitive accumulation?

The historical process through which workers were separated from the means of production, e.g. through colonialism and land enclosures

What is Marx’s critique of market freedom?

What appears as individual freedom is actually structural coercion—workers must sell their labor to survive in an unequal system

Why is wage labor not truly free according to Marx?

Because workers are economically coerced into selling their labor; they lack alternative means to survive

What does Marx mean by 'muteness of compulsion'?

Control is exercised structurally and silently through economic necessity, not visible violence

What are the four forms of alienation in Marx?

1. Alienation from product, 2. Alienation from activity, 3. Alienation from species-being, 4. Alienation from others

What is alienation from the product of labor?

The worker has no control over or ownership of what they produce—it confronts them as something alien

What is alienation from the activity of labor?

Labor is unfree, unfulfilling, and repetitive; the worker becomes disconnected from the act of work itself

What is alienation from species-being?

Under capitalism, humans can no longer express their essential nature—free, conscious, creative labor

What is alienation from other humans?

Social life is reduced to economic competition; others become rivals or tools, not partners

What is surplus value?

The difference between the value a worker produces and what they are paid—appropriated by the capitalist as profit

What is exploitation in Marx’s theory?

A structural process where labor creates more value than it receives in wages, enabling profit

What is historical materialism?

The theory that material conditions (economic structures) shape consciousness and social change

Quote summarizing historical materialism

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social being that determines their consciousness”

What are the components of a mode of production?

Productive forces (tools, knowledge) and relations of production (property, class relations)

What causes social revolutions according to Marx?

Contradictions between advancing productive forces and outdated relations of production

What does Marx see as the future after capitalism?

Communism: collective control over production, abolition of wage labor, end of alienation

What are the features of communism?

No private ownership of means of production, no wage labor, abundance, autonomy, and the withering of the state

What are key critiques of Marx’s theory?

Historical determinism, failed predictions, and underestimation of alternative forms of power like culture or institutions

Who is Michel Foucault?

A 20th-century French philosopher and historian who studied the relationship between power, knowledge, and subjectivity

What is Foucault’s methodological approach?

Genealogy: historical reconstruction of how forms of power and knowledge develop over time

What are the three types of power discussed across thinkers?

1. Sovereign power (vertical, juridico-political), 2. Economic power (structural, class-based), 3. Disciplinary power (micro, institutional, productive)

What is sovereign power?

A centralized form of power exercised through violence and visible spectacle, based on obedience to a sovereign authority

What is economic power in Marxist terms?

Structural power rooted in production relations, class conflict, and control of labor and capital

What is disciplinary power?

A diffuse, institutional form of power that operates through surveillance, normalization, and the internalization of behavior

What is the Panopticon and how does Foucault reinterpret it?

Originally a prison design by Bentham; for Foucault, it is a model of how surveillance produces self-regulating individuals

What does Foucault mean by 'visibility is a trap'?

Constant observation makes individuals internalize control, leading them to behave as if they are always being watched

How does disciplinary power differ from sovereign power?

It operates through micro-techniques of control, not violence; it produces docile bodies rather than punishing disobedient ones

What is the role of the Panopticon in modern society?

It serves as a political technology that can be applied to schools, hospitals, factories, and more—detached from any specific function

What are the key functions of disciplinary institutions?

To observe, categorize, train, correct, and produce knowledge about individuals

How does disciplinary power function through distributing individuals?

It isolates individuals in space (cells, desks) to ensure constant supervision and separation

How does disciplinary power control bodily activities?

By using timetables, enforcing postures, breaking movements into components, and regulating time and space

What does Foucault mean by organizing 'geneses'?

Discipline guides individuals along developmental paths toward long-term productive ends

What does it mean to 'compose forces' in discipline?

Discipline aligns individuals within groups to function in coordinated, efficient ways

What types of individuality does discipline produce?

Cellular (separated), organic (regulated), genetic (developmental), and combinatory (group-integrated) individuality

What is hierarchical observation?

A mechanism of surveillance embedded in architecture and institutional design that enables constant visibility

What is normalizing judgment?

A disciplinary mechanism that evaluates behavior against norms and rewards or punishes accordingly

What is the examination?

A technique combining observation and judgment to create knowledge about individuals through files, records, and rankings

What is the concept of power-knowledge?

Power and knowledge reinforce each other; knowledge is both an effect and instrument of power

How do human sciences emerge from disciplinary institutions?

Criminology from prisons, pedagogy from schools, psychiatry from asylums, sociology from modern state administration

What are the two political dreams in Foucault’s genealogy?

1. Exclusionary society (lepers, outcasts), 2. Inclusive governed city (plague town, normalized management)

How does the disciplinary society evolve?

Disciplinary techniques spread from marginal institutions (asylums, prisons) into general society through norms, surveillance, and classification

What is the role of norms in disciplinary society?

Norms define acceptable behavior and individual identity, creating the boundaries of normal and abnormal

What does it mean that power is capillary in Foucault’s view?

It flows through small, everyday interactions and institutional settings—not just from top-down authorities

What is the central question in the debate on collective moral responsibility?

Can a group be morally responsible even when no single individual is blameworthy?

What is Margaret Gilbert’s theory called?

Plural Subject Theory

What is Seumas Miller’s theory called?

Joint Moral Responsibility (JMR)

What is required for individual moral responsibility?

Moral significance, control/freedom, and knowledge of the action’s moral implications

What is a group in Gilbert’s theory?

A plural subject defined by joint commitment to act as a body toward a shared goal

What does a joint commitment entail in Gilbert’s theory?

Mutual obligation, social pressure, inability to unilaterally rescind, and potential rebuke

What is the difference between basic and non-basic joint commitments?

Basic: mutual agreement to act together. Non-basic: delegation of decision-making that still binds all members

What does Gilbert say about collective guilt?

It is possible even if no individual is personally guilty, through radical disjunction

What is membership guilt in Gilbert’s theory?

A legitimate, intelligible feeling of guilt as a group member, even without personal blame

What is a plural subject?

A group that shares a joint commitment and acts as a unified 'we'

What does Gilbert’s theory explain in political life?

Public apologies, symbolic guilt, and collective emotional responsibility

What problems does Miller identify in atomism and collectivism?

Atomism ignores group dynamics; collectivism can let individuals escape accountability

What is joint moral responsibility (JMR)?

Moral responsibility shared by individuals who act interdependently toward a collective end

What are conditions for moral responsibility in Miller’s JMR?

Significance of the joint action and each individual’s intention and contribution

What does JMR say about group actions like the Sanda Dia case?

Participants are jointly responsible for the collective outcome, even if unintended