Perspectives Vocab Semester 2

"For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth or a State...which is but an artificial man."

Thomas Hobbes

"Life itself is but a motion, and can never be without desire."

Thomas Hobbes

"Liberty, or freedom, signifies (properly) the absence of opposition (by opposition meaning external impediments of motion)"

Thomas Hobbes

Macrocosm

the large-scale universe; typically means "the large version of"

Microcosm

the small-scale universe, the universe repeated in smaller form; typically means "The smaller version of"

Political theory

a proposal on how a state/society/government functions and should function; both descriptive (how it is) and prescriptive (how it should ideally be)

every political theory presupposes

an anthropology

every anthropology presupposes (3 things)

a metaphysics (theory of what is real), epistemology (a theory of how humans know, or don't know, reality), and cognitional theory (a theory of how human cognition works)

"Summum bonum"

the highest good, or final end, of human natural desire; God

moral responsibility

the feeling of care that motivates questions for ethical intentionality, ordered to a decision and action

somatic feeling

feelings arising directly from the body

intentional feeling

feelings arising in response to conscious acts; they make present to consciousness values and disvalues for choosing

transitive effects

how choices impact whatever is not the chooser

intransitive effect

how choices impact the chooser

integrity

correspondence between one's knowing and doing

rationalization

using pseudo-reasons to bring our knowing in line with our vicious doing; eventually distorts our ability to judge facts well

Locke's definition of political power

"The right of making laws with penalties of death...for the regulating and preserving of property...only for the common good."

"Force without right upon a man's nature makes a state of war."

Locke

Lockean Liberty

the freedom to do what is legal, under the restraint of natural law, and not be subject to the will of another human

Positive law

another term for human laws in force within a certain jurisdiction (sphere of applicability)

property

what is created when something from nature is changed from its natural state by being mixed with human labor; what results belongs ot the laborer

the growth imperative

the systemic necessity to increase economically/militarily, in order to maintain one's current status of safety

instrumental reason

the view that reason cannot evaluate its ends; it can only reason in a way to increase efficiency in achieving ends

state of war

a war of all against all; "The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

social contract theory of government

the notion that governments come into being through individuals contracting with one another

"Wherever...any number of men so united into one society, as to quit every one of his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there, and there only, is a political or civil society."

Locke on leaving the state of nature

executive power

the power to enforce laws (both positive and natural laws)

legislative power

the power to make laws; this is the highest form of power in the commonwealth for Locke; DOES NOT have the power to make laws against natural law (for Locke, preserving private property)

Body Politic

a term referring to a society or political community, metaphorically conceived as a body

Majority consensus

the force that moves of the body politic out of a state of inertia

"O Lord, you search me and know me...it was you who created my innermost self"

Psalm 138

"Where can I run from Your love? Where can I flee from Your Presence? If I climb to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the underworld, you are there."

Psalm 138

"The sense of separation from God is real, but the separation is not."

on prayer not acquiring but discovering God

Salus Populi Suprema Lex

"the preservation of the people is the supreme law [of the land]"

Prerogrative

the power to act according to discretion for the public good, without prescription of law and sometimes against it

"Who will guard the guardians?" or "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

refers to the problem of infinite regress in external accountability

Tyranny

the exercise of power beyond right; no one has a right to that kind of power

Lockean Toleration

the refusal to physically persecute another person or group for differences of religious belief or practice

"Liberty of Conscience is every man's natural right...no one ought to be compelled in matters of religion either by law or by force."

Speaker = John Locke

Natural Right

what a being is entitled to by nature/God, and not by government/positive law

Legal right

what a person is entitled to by government/positive law

Pity

the pre-rational feeling of repugnance at the suffering of others; the source of all social virtues for Rousseau

"Reason is what turns man in upon himself"

Rousseau on reason leading to amour propre (egocentrism)