Political Theory Final

Hobbes – The Leviathan

• Consistently on the losing side of the English Civil War.
• 1688: His works faced accusations of “atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness” and were banned from publishing in English.
• Intention:
  • Often read as a justification for absolute monarchy, but this is debated.
  • The front cover depicts a sovereign figure composed of individuals.
  • The people are looking up in awe of the sovereign.
  • The sovereign is an artificial being, not contiguous with nature.
  • The sovereign holds a sword and a bishop’s scepter representing earthly and heavenly authority.
• Aim of the book: Self-preservation.
  • How to produce peace instead of war.
  • Falls within the realm of negative political theory.
• Method:
  • Dismantles society in a thought experiment to see how it works.
  • First Step:
    • Individuals are the constituent parts.
  • Second Step:
    • Assumptions about ‘human nature’:
      • Self-interested yet confront scarce resources.
      • Will do what is necessary to ensure self-preservation, even at the cost to others.
      • Individuals are not moral creatures.
      • No individual is strong enough to dominate all others all the time.
      • Striking first is advantageous for self-preservation.
      • Hubris is a fault.
      • Individuals are competitive, egoistic, glory-seeking, and desirous of power.
• Implication of these assumptions:
  • Absolute natural equality.
  • Everyone can attack anyone at any time to stay alive.
• State of nature:
  • Absence of order.
  • Continual fear of danger of violent death.
  • Nasty, brutish, and short.
• How to escape the ‘state of nature’:
  • Covenant to uphold a ‘social contract’.
  • Covenant is not a contract but a deal between individuals.
  • Contract is the sum of the covenants.
  • Overarching contract to appoint one person who will not be part of society.
• Social contract:
  • An artificial device to secure order, protection, safety, trust, and the conditions of cooperation.
  • First question in politics for Hobbes.
• What it establishes:
  • A sovereign (all-seeing, all-doing) power, the state.
• Hobbes ‘flips the script’ on the traditional Aristotelian notion of humans as political animals:
  • Aristotle: citizens are the state.
  • Hobbes: the state conjures citizens into being.
  • Prior to the state, individuals are a mere ‘multitude’.
  • The state creates the citizens.
  • Only when individuals covenant with each other do they become a political society.

Recap

• Aim of Leviathan:
  • To produce peace instead of war.
  • Remains in the realm of negative political theory.
• Method:
  • Dismantle society to see how it works (as if it were a clock).
  • Proposes a ‘thought experiment’.
• First step:
  • Individuals are constituent parts.
  • Hobbes makes a radical break by saying there are only individuals.
  • Anything collective is artificial; what is natural is individuals.
• Second step:
  • Self-interested confront scarce resources.
  • Primary goal: self-preservation.
  • Striking first is advantageous for self-preservation.
• Implication of these assumptions:
  • Absolute natural equality.
  • Hobbes is the first egalitarian.
• Three aspects of the “nature of men”:
  • Competitiveness for scarce resources (invasion of others for gain).
    • Every individual will compete for resources and will show diffidence towards others.
    • Bonking each others heads
  • Diffidence, egoism, unwillingness to make and keep friends (‘invasion’ for safety).
  • Thirst for glory (‘invasion’ for reputation, power, which helps one stay alive: this is not Maccy’s glory).
    • Glory as in reputation
• Justice
  • State of nature: no justice exists.
  • Where there is no common power, there is no law.
  • Justice is the product of society.
• Good reason to be cheerful:
  • Recognition that individuals inhabit a state of nature.
  • Individuals act rationally because they act in self-preservation.
  • Deliberation (Aristotle)
• Two things must be accepted regarding the laws of nature:
  • Right of nature: The liberty held by every man to preserve his own life.
    • The only right, right to stay alive and to preserve your life.
  • Liberty: the absence of external impediments.
    • Not the freedom Pericles or Maccy, bare raw nature instead.
• Three laws of Nature:
  • Innate capacity for reason commands.
  • First Law: Men endeavor to seek peace where and when possible.
    • The constant threat of violent death is so anxiety-inducing, you must escape it.
  • Second law: That man be willing when others are so too, for peace, and defense of himself, he shall think it necessary to lay down his right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself.
    • All things you were free to do in the state of nature, like killing others, you have to be willing to give it up.
    • Your reason will compel you.
  • Third Law: To honor all agreements, to keep all covenants made.
    • Nature is to keep agreements; going back on deals is unsustainable.
• Laws of Nature:
  • Hobbesian laws of nature are rational imperatives that you as a reasoning being.
  • Capacity for reason that keeps us talking to each other about how (given human nature and laws of nature) we might permanently escape the state of nature.
• Common Power
  • Need a common power to “keep us all in awe,” which is to say, a power backed by coercive threat.
  • Contractual “aha” moment: we all agree with each other to obey laws of nature, therefore we are all driven to agree we need a sovereign – creating an artificial unity.
  • Enacts a transfer of will (facilitates representation).
  • In effect, we trade obedience for protection.

Peacetime Order

• Peacetime order sustained by sovereign (representative)’s legitimate threats of coercion (co it, because I have the power to harm you).
• Trade obedience for protection.
• Law takes away all your freedoms in exchange for protection.
• Voluntarily said I do not want to be free

The Sovereign

• Hobbes: the sovereign is the state.
• Sovereign represents the state – the state is itself an artificial person (without agency).
• Sovereign could be natural (a president or corporate person (an assembly).
• Sovereign holds a monopoly on legitimate use of violence and thus keeps the peace.
• Also holds the monopoly on law (we appoint sovereign but don’t tell sovereign how to do the job: metaphor of lawyer or accountant).
• Defines just and unjust (in both religious and temporal matters).
• Formalized the state.
• Saw religion as instrumentally useful

Authority

• Sovereign holds absolute authority, but the ground for this absolute authority always lies in the covenant.
• Not in the natural order and not in some link that the sovereign has to the divine.
• Hobbes says divine right is a load of bum.
• A sovereign is there because the people gave him the authority for protection from the state of nature.
• Why then is Hobbes not a royalist, why did he anger royalists?
  • He rejects the ‘divine right of kings’ and locates the power of the sovereign in the people’s rational decision.
• What does that rational decision consist of?
  • We covenant to sustain the social contract which delivers absolute power to the sovereign (one person or an assembly of persons).
• Why must the sovereign be all-powerful?
  • Otherwise, we regress to the state of nature.
  • Instead of leading to compromise or consensus, or even class conflict, reason leads us to the conclusion that we must surrender all judgement in matters of law (secular rules) and morality (religious rules) to the sovereign.
• Hobbes says we will never solve all of our problems ourselves.
• Hobbes is no republican (rejects Aristotle, Thuccy, and Maccy).
• Hobbes is a reactionary radical who uses radical ideas to support a form of authoritarian rule that went further than even the divine right of Kings had allowed
• Hobbes was the first?
• Liberal

Recap (XVIII, XXI)

• What is Hobbes' aim for Leviathan?
  • To explain how individuals can produce peace instead of war (Leviathan presents a negative political theory)
• What method does he use?
  • He dismantles society to see how it works (as if it were a clock).
  • He knows he cannot really do this, so he proposes a thought experiment: Imagine what it would be like to live in the ‘state of nature’
• What are the constituent parts of the state of nature?
  • Individuals, primary interest in self-preservation, yet endowed with reason, exhibit three qualities that reveal the nature of man
• What are the three qualities?
  • Competitiveness (for resources), diffidence, vainglory
  • Rational individuals' responses in the state of nature
• In sum, what assumptions about ‘human nature’ does Hobbes make?
  • Self-interested yet confront scarce resources, so will do what is necessity to ensure the primary goal of self-preservation, even at cost to others
  • No individual strong enough to dominate all others all the time, so striking first is advantageous for self-preservation (neither intelligence nor physical strength helpful) – not because you don’t like them – you do what you have to do to stay alive
  • State of nature – extremely exhausting
• What does Hobbes take these assumptions about human nature to imply?

Continued

• Absolute natural equality
  • First to presume equality instead of hierarchy – anyone can kill anyone else – equal in misery
• What makes individuals equal in the state of nature?
  • No justice or injustice in the state of nature, therefore, individuals equal insofar as each has the right to everything (if you can get it)
• Given these assumptions, how do individuals escape the state of nature (ensure peace instead of war)?
  • Covenant of all with all
• How does the covenant come about?
  • Two assumptions:
    • Right of nature – liberty held by every man to preserve his own life
    • Liberty – the absence of external impediments (not being interfered with in the exercise of one’s will)
  • Individuals' innate capacity for reason through covenanting commands they obey the laws of nature
    • First – seek peace where and when possible
    • Second – lay down the right to all things
    • Third – honor all agreements, keep all covenants made
• In other words, Hobbes argues that the rational individual, in the state of nature, will give up all rights for one right, what is it?
  • The right not to be killed – set up a social contract designed to preserve your life
• How does the covenant of each with each (aka the social contract) deliver this right?
  • Established an artificial unity, a common power to keep us all in awe, a power backed by coercive threat
• What does Hobbes call this artificial entity?
  • The Sovereign – Machiavelli says law keeps you free, but Hobbes says Law keeps you alive
• Individuals Transfer right to everything to the sovereign, who guarantees one right, what is it?
  • Not to be killed – the sovereign could not endanger your life – Hobbes against death penalty and conscription – the state has to pay you to join the military
• The sovereign therefore all individuals?
  • Represents all individuals party to social contract:
    • Can be natural (leader) or corporate person (assembly)
    • Holds monopoly on legitimate use of violence and monopoly on law (metaphor of lawyer or accountant) and morality (religious affairs): Defines just and unjust
    • Law has to be known
    • Sovereign is in charge of religion
• Hobbes is telling us something more about human nature… what might it be?
  • Hobbes – when you’re in the state nature you’re rational
  • Individuals renounce right to all things based on capacity for reason:
    • Reason convinces individuals of the fragility of belief in cases of strong disagreement;
    • Knowledge that insisting on what one believes to be the truth will only escalate conflict, that toleration is needed; - in the state of nature – in the light of reason, realize they need to give up all their rights to stop themselves from killing each other
    • Refusing to back down dissolves the social contract
    • Wise individuals know that path to peace (and serenity) runs through renunciation of those beliefs (not toleration in the first instance) and acceptance of universal law laid down by sovereign, established by social contract – realization that you could be wrong – first step towards contract
    • The wisdom to know that you could be wrong is inside is the key to freedom – you are always free – what you do when you contract with other people, you give up that freedom for the safety of the law
• Upon reflection, individuals realize that they should deprive themselves of the capacity to act on their independent judgements as long as others do what?
  • Do likewise, each individual aligns their judgement with those of all other individuals, the social contract establishes a ‘civil society’ – has the idea that people in America were uncivilized and lived in the state of nature – everybody does likewise
• If this is the wise individual does (act reasonably) how does Hobbes Foole act?
  • Ignores the light of reason – breaks the contract by trying himself to become the sovereign – proceeds to increase his own power by seizing either earthly or heavenly kingdom (becoming sovereign – the foole tries to increase power beyond what contract allows
  • Does not try to get something for nothing, not a free rider
  • Tells himself, if I could seize sovereignty, I would more likely to survive than if I remained an obedient citizen
  • Acts irrationally because misunderstanding the social contract
  • The whole point of the social contract is that the sovereign is no better off than any other citizen;

More on Hobbes

• Foole fails to recognize that there is a greater risk of being killed (oneself but more importantly, causing others to be killed) if one embarks on treason rather than obeying the laws set down by the sovereign, which the social contract establishes
• There is no benefit from being sovereign, rather than ordinary citizen because it does not matter who the sovereign is.
• What matters is that all rational individuals choose to covenant, each with another, to create the artificial entity that is the sovereign– anonymity of the law – once the sovereign is there and outside of the people, the law is also outside the people
• The wise individual opposed to the fool: There is nothing special about my judgements, they are as fragile as anyone else's
  • Republican model – law is inside/of the people
• Hobbes deviates from Machiavelli
  • Maccy: treason is betraying fellow citizens
  • Hobbes: treason is betraying the state

Moving Further

• The sovereign delivers and upholds impersonal and universal law
  • Note: universal within the territory covered by the social contract, hence covering all citizens
    • The modern republican party – classical liberal
    • Modern democratic – progressive liberalism
  • Hobbes spells out three foundations of modern — both 'classical' and 'progressive' - liberalism.
• So Andy didn’t have enough to say about Hobbes
• What is the aim of the book?
  • How to produce peace instead of war. We remain in the realm of negative political theory
• What method does he use?
  • Wants to dismantle society to see how it works, cannot really do this, so proposes a Thought experiment
• First step, once has dismantled society, one is left with its constituent parts what are these parts?
  • Individuals
    • The only thing you can know is yourself
• Second Step, what assumptions about ‘human nature’ does Hobbes make?
  • Self-preservation
  • Self-interest – the interest is the preservations
  • Striking first
  • Individuals are competitive egotistic, glory-seeking, and desirous of power
• What does Hobbes take these assumptions about human nature to imply?
  • Absolute natural equality – Hobbes first egalitarian
    • Prior to Hobbes – talking about hierarchies
    • Hobbes says that everyone is equal
• Hobbes argues that this dismantled society at all… hence his famous thought experiment begins with the state of…?
  • State of nature – only individual
    • Justice/Injustice, beautiful/ugly, right/wrong – subjective: collective idea
• What makes individuals equal in the state of nature?
  • No justice or injustice, individuals equal insofar as each has the right to everything
    • Realize you can do anything you want – but not liberating because everyone else can do the same
    • Right to everything and there are no rules
    • Ownership is a collective idea
• Because individuals are also innately rational, the experience of the ‘state of nature’ brings out the “nature of man,” which has three aspects, what are they?
  • Competitiveness – scarce resources
  • Diffidence – unwillingness to make and keep friends
  • Thirst/Vain for glory – Invasion for reputation, power which helps one stay alive – not Maccy’s glory
• Rough parallel between three aspects of ‘nature of man’ and three passions?

Hobbes Continued

• Fear of death - competitiveness
• Desire of things necessary - Diffidence
• Hope to obtain them – vainglory
• Two definitions/ Assumptions
  • Right of nature – liberty held by every man to preserve his own life
  • Liberty – the absence of external impediments (not being interfered with in the exercise of one’s will)
    • First – seek peace where and when possible
    • Second – lay down the right to all things
    • Third – honor all agreements, keep all covenants made
• Three Laws of Nature
  • Rough parallel with three aspects of nature of man. And three main laws of nature – not physical laws – laws of nature as perceived by individuals
• Reasons drives individuals to do what to escape the state of nature?
  • Covenant each with another to uphold social contract – explanation of what rational individuals would do if they found themselves in the state of nature
• What is the social contract?
  • An Artificial device that secures order, protection, safety, trust, and the conditions of cooperation
• What does the contract establish
  • The sovereign (all seeing, knowing, doing) power, the state
• How does this aspect of Hobbes ‘flip the script’ on Aristotelian belief that humans are the political animals?
  • Previously, citizens are the state
  • Hobbes says no, the sovereign, the state, makes individuals into citizens
• Rational individuals voluntarily lay down unlimited right to everything in exchange for what?
  • The right not to be killed
  • State represents you and your interests in not being killed
• All rational individuals will trade obedience for protection
• Sovereign holds absolute authority but grounds for it lie in the social contract. Not in the natural order and not in tsome link that the sovereign has to the divine.
• Why then is Hobbes not a royalist, why did he anger royalist?
  • He rejects the ‘divine right of kings’ and locates the power of the sovereign in the peoples’ rational decision to appoint sovereign (individual or assembly)
  • Hobbes is not a republican or a royalist – rejects all of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy – new way of thinking where law is above everyone else – government is alien – dispenser of truth
• What does the rational decision consist of?
  • Covenant to sustain social contract – always about individuals
• Why must the sovereign be all-powerful?
  • Otherwise, we regress to the state of nature
• The sovereign therefore represents all individuals
  • Holds monopoly on legitimate use of violence

Mary Wollstonecraft

• French Revolution – was only for men – and was pissed off by this idea
• Published in 1792, two years after Vindication of Rights of Men
• What was her overall aim?
  • Offer a positive political theory: Wants to make the world a better, a more moral place; wants to align politics with morality – how to make the world a better place
• What is the central argument of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman?
  • The moral rejuvenation of society is inseparable from the happiness of each individual woman, of all women
    • Women can’t be happy in the world as it is
• One cause of women’s unhappiness:
  • Lack of education – men have dreamed up because they are lustful of beauty and this leads women to be extremely unhappy –
    • Mary believes that the role of women as beautiful is very unsatisfying and can only lead to unhappiness – also a source of unhappiness for men as well – “specious/untrue homage” – women fall into the trap of women being attributed as sexy – insult to both women and men –
    • Women ought to pursue a nobler ambition – women need to realize they’re being diluted by men – they should seek a more virtuous set of aspirations and goals – would force men to respect them more – force men to be better people
    • Mary: men are physically stronger

Wollstonecraft Continued

• Not going to let women off the hook – many women are intoxicated by the adoration of men
• Marriages were contracts between families – contractual relationship – Mary advocating for friendship in marriage
• Trying to find a way to bring the sexes together on a higher plane (reason, virtue, morality) – lower plane (animal lust)
  • This is now invisible in the west
• Masculinity
  • Two ways of thinking:
    • Animal way: A lot of men piss away their lives hunting, shooting, and getting about – not a good thing for either gender
    • Rational/Virtuosity: attaining virtue and noble character – Mary says there is no male/female virtue - universal
  • Mary is saying if masculinity is attaining full virtue and morality– then she is in favor of “masculine women”
  • Both should be able to achieve that higher state of virtue and reason
  • Both men/women have the capacity to attain morality/virtue
  • Therefore there should be no difference in status and education of men and women – equal on the plain/perspective of reason
• Riffs on Aristotle – all have a goal in life – as we go about life we unfold towards the goal of rationality, reality, and virtue
  • Men and Women are two separate beings, but both human
  • Virtue is a single thing – encourage women to take up education, then everyone will be happy, men are not served well either by this system
  • Telos of human being is rationality – therefore, women can be rational and moral
• Upper Class
  • Mary interested in talking to Bourgeois - upper middle class females
  • Mary believes that poor women are better off than rich women bc poor tend not to suffer from indignities of ideas of women being beautiful – they don’t have to maintain beauty
  • Tough on the rich girls – “bimbos”
  • Pretty harsh but telling it like it is
• False education encourages all women to use “feminine wiles’ to attract rich husbands, but this cannot only lead to unhappiness… why?
  • No one stays attractive and beautiful forever (ladies ;))
  • Thuccy – No one stays top dog forever
  • Because intellect will always govern – morality and rationality are one
  • Your body and soul are separate things – if you are foolish enough to pin your selfhood on your body, you will be unhappy because your body will age and get all wrinkly, bound to become more unhappy and bitter as life progresses
  • What you should be doing is learning, thinking and contemplating to become virtuous – virtue is a habit – you have to cultivate it
  • Irrational to encourage women to be beautiful because it doesn’t matter – the real things in life exist on a higher plane – intellect will always govern – you can train yourself in virtue as your life will be richer in the real sense of rich
• Formal education the vehicle for moral improvement of women, so, whole society. Education transforms women’s sense of worth from beauty, attractiveness, appearance to?
  • Rational self-command, self-knowledge, knowledge of virtue – men and women are both capable of attaining this – realizes that becoming rational involves a good deal of self-discipline and self-command
• What does formal education do for women?
  • Makes women fully human, beings ruled by reason rather than ‘raw’ desire
  • Men will be happier because they won’t have a clutching nagging companion that only wants him for his money

Wollstonecraft Recap

• What is Wollstonecraft’s overall aim?
  • To offer a positive political theory: Wants to make the world a better, a more moral place; Wants to bring politics into alignment with morality
  • Fundamentally different than the thinkers discussed so far
• What is the central argument of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman?
  • The alignment of politics with morality (moral rejuvenation) is inseparable from the happiness of each individual woman, of all women
• Why does the false education of women, teaching to women to use ‘feminine wiles’ to seduce a rich man into marriage, among other things, lead to unhappiness?
  • No one stays attractive, beautiful forever … (just as in Thucydides, nobody stays ‘top dog’ forever)
  • Take advantage of the moment – its all good until you’re not top dog
  • You may get animal pleasure out of the way things are, but it’s not worth it forever
• Wollstonecraft concludes her Introduction by stating: “Because intellect will always govern” (13), what does she mean by this?
  • Reason and moral principle are ultimately aligned
  • (Human) nature tends toward immorality, vice, but the force of reason will ultimately prevail, all it takes is virtue, which all thinking people can recognize and strive toward – Mary’s message
  • Yes the world isn’t a good place at the moment, but if you exercise your reason and train yourself towards virtue, you can make the world a better place
• Imprisoned by a web of false expectations, women are ill-prepared to fulfill the moral duties (virtuosity) that all rational beings can recognize so … formal [i.e, rational] education is the vehicle for moral improvement of women and, the whole society
• Such education transforms the foundation of women’s sense of worth from physical appearance to … ?
  • Rational self-command, self-knowledge, knowledge of virtue
  • Women in Mary’s world were obeying animal passions
  • Women should be exposed to formal education to cultivate themselves
• What does formal education do for women?
  • Makes women fully human, beings ruled by reason rather than ‘raw’ desire
  • In a primitive childish state
  • If we do educate women, they will become ruled by reason and be happier
  • Men will be happier too – they will have a partner ready for intellectual discourse
• What does Wollstonecraft mean by ‘education’?
  • By individual education, I mean, for the sense of the word is not precisely defined, such an attention to a child as will slowly sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they begin to ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body arrives at maturity; so that the [human being who undergoes education] may only have to proceed, not to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason (21)
  • Don’t think that this is a recipe for life, be aware that this is a passing moment
  • Don’t peak in college – its fun to be young
  • Don’t hang all your hopes on a husband – amen
  • Education is being part of the world and following the news
  • Every human being may become virtuous through the exercise over their own free will
• Two groups of people: women and military officers
  • Neither get education
  • Men have liberty to experience the world – their experience of the world gives them the education they need
  • The environment they experience determines the result
• Virtue is one thing and one thing only
  • If women are human beings and virtue is one thing, then they should be capable of reaching that virtue
    1. Virtue is one thing, it involves the use of reason (rationality), and the source of true happiness
    2. Women and men are but two examples of one (other) thing: Beings with souls
    3. Therefore, both must be permitted, encouraged, to pursue virtue (the true happiness which accompanies rationality)
    4. Not allowing women to pursue virtue (exercise reason) undermines the capacity of ‘mankind’ (all beings with souls) to realize its destiny (‘Providence’)
    5. All beings with souls are obliged to pursue virtue because this will ensure the alignment of politics with morality (approximate the ideal of justice on Earth) – assures that everyone will act in a virtuous manner
• Can you follow the logic here?
  • Wollstonecraft’s work is exemplary of the ‘natural rights’ tradition (John Locke is probably an even more famous exemplar) – rejects the idea of the constitution and justice theory – idealist – a priori – thinks of justice that has no material existence, humans aspire to justice
  • In this tradition, justice is not a product of the establishment of politics (in place of war): This is why Wollstonecraft is not a ‘realist’ (or a materialist), she is a moralist or ‘idealist’
  • Justice, so, rights are ‘God-given’ or ‘natural’, as are rights, the good, the true, the beautiful, virtue, reason, these are pure, perfect a priori ideals
• How does one know if a situation is just?
  • One relates what one observes to the ideal

Vindication of the Rights of Men – to Edmund Burke

• Recap: What is Mary’s overall aim as a scholar?
  • To offer a positive political theory: Wants to make the world a better, a more moral place: wants to bring politics into alignment with morality – aim that previous theorists found fanciful at best
• What is the central argument in Vin. Of Rights of Women?
  • To show the alignment of politics with morality (moral rejuvenation) is inseparable from the happiness of each individual woman, of all women
• Why does the miseducation of women lead to unhappiness
  • No one stays attractive, beautiful forever (Thuccy’s top dog argument)
  • Bimbo is a product of men’s desire rather than human capacity for reason – deformation of human potential because it is based on animal desires that men have when they don’t think fully
• Intellect will always govern – what does she mean by this?
  • Reason and moral principle are ultimately aligned
  • Human nature tends toward immorality – tend to lean towards vice, but the force of reason/intellect will prevail, all it takes is virtue, to which thinking people must strive
• Education transforms the foundation of women’s sense of worth from physical appearance (transient) to?
  • Rational self-command, self-knowledge, knowledge of virtue
  • Enduring/heavenly
  • Escaping animal self
• What does formal education do for women?
  • Makes women fully human, beings ruled by reason, not raw desire
• VRM
  • Written before VRW
  • Reign of terror – stasis
  • Two kinds of capital punishment
  • Egalitarian Jacobins brought in guillotine to equalize painless death
• Participants
  • Rev. Dr. Richard Price –
    • Dissenter - True patriotism based on reason – not ‘selfish jingoism’
    • Liberty of conscience a natural, sacred, God-given right
    • Says the French revolution should spread all over the world
    • Called for the establishment of universal franchise – every adult realize their universal natural rights
  • Edmund Burke
    • Philosophical founder of modern conservatism
    • Supported American colonies' resistance to taxation by Britain but did not support republican demands for independence
    • Argues:
      • Response to the revolution is abhorrence
      • Confiscation of church property and disestablishment of church undermine the fundamental right to private property
      • Ideas of right, good, true, beautiful are products of tradition and nationalist prejudice, not reason – adhere to values regardless of rational basis
      • Revolutionary sweeping away of status quo, replacement with abstract ‘rational’ rights and rules, uninformed by traditional customs and culture is disrespectful from ‘obvious facts of human nature’
      • The revolution provokes ‘mutinous’ feelings among soldiers, who will back charismatic general thus invites coup
  • Mary herself:
    • Sides with Price and argues against Burke
    • Takes for granted Lockean concept of god-given ‘natural rights’
    • Natural rights discoverable by reason, except when self-love warps, undermines reason
      • All people are with effort/virtue, are able to recognize justice, the right, the good, the true, the beautiful: God made all things right, the cause of all evil is human irrationality
    • Accuses Burke of:
      • Ignoring man-made poverty so injustice; attributes to his ‘infatuation’ with aristocratic tradition, rank, and person of Queen Marie-Antoinette, for Burke, Queen was merely posing an innocent question
• Can anyone tie the argument of VRW to that of VRM?
  • The Miseducation of women (VRW), denial of rights to all individuals (VRM), undermine human capacity for Reason, therefore, undermines Rationality of society as a whole
  • Mary believes that only those institutions that can withstand the scrutiny of reason and thus be drawn into conformity with natural rights and God’s justice merit respect and obedience

Wollstonecraft Summary

• Tradition, be it miseducation of women or absence of rights and universal franchise, a mere smoke-screen for hypocrisy, egotism, greed – vices that should be eliminated
• How might we summarize the core