Chapter 8: Social & Political Philosophy

8.1 : What is social and political philosophy?

• Questions of social and political philosophy include:
  • What is the legitimate role of government?
  • What should government do for the poor?
  • How is the individual related to society?
  • Is the authority of the state justified?
  • What is justice?

8.2 : What justifies the state?

• The state—or its government—has the power and authority to make and enforce law even if particular citizens disagree
• social contract theory tries to justify this power and authority by arguing that citizens have made an agreement or “contract” that gives the state this power.

Hobbes and the War of All against All

• Hobbes held that because humans are selfish and driven by greed, without government life would be a “war of every man against every man” and “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
• To escape this situation, people agree to subject themselves to a sovereign and give him the power to enforce peace among them.

Lock and Natural Moral Laws

• In contrast with Hobbes’s pessimism, John Locke viewed humans as essentially moral beings who ought to obey natural moral rules.
• Where Hobbes saw warfare as the human’s natural state, Locke saw our natural state as at least partly regulated by natural moral laws.
• As a result, Locke viewed humans as free and equal by nature, regardless of the existence of any government.

Rousseau and the General Will

• Rousseau argued that without government, people’s property and security are at risk.
  • But government is justified only if it is consistent with human freedom and autonomy.
  • Government is justified if it is the outcome of a pact in which every citizen agrees to unite under a “general will,
  • for in obeying the general will, the citizen is obeying himself and so is free and autonomous.

Contemporary Social Contract: Rawls

• Rawls agrees with Hume that the social contract is a historical fiction but said that it helps us see what a just government is.
• Rawls argues that a just government is one we would choose to live under if we chose without knowing whether we would be rich or poor, black or white, and so forth.
• For under such a “veil of ignorance,” we would choose a form of government that was fair to everyone by providing everyone with equal political rights and economic opportunities.

The Communitarian Critique

• Communitarians argue that social contract theory mistakenly ignores Aristotle’s and Hegel’s claim that government is not an artificial construct but is a natural outgrowth of our social nature
  • it is necessary for full human development and is the source of the culture and tradition that make us who we are.
• Communitarian views, contrary to social contract theory, imply that
  • (1) the state is not an artificial construct
  • (2) because without the state, humans could not develop, for there would be no one to enter a social contract in “the state of nature”
  • (3) and because our culture and traditions make us who we are, the state should support the cultural traditions of its people, including their religion, morality, and cultural values.

Social Contract and Women

• Feminists argue that social contract theory wrongly assumes that family structures are justified because often in families males rule over females without their consent, and social contract theory wrongly assumes that the “public” sphere of the state should not interfere with the “private” sphere of the family.
• Feminists also argue that social contract theory divides the “public” life of politics and economics, in which men predominate, from the “private” life of the family, where women are confined to labor so that men can participate in public life.
• This unjustly relegates women to powerless roles, gives men political and economic power, and insulates family relations from public criticism.
• Okin argues that the public or nondomestic world where economic and political power is centered, and the private domestic world of the family where women are unequal and psychologically oppressed, have deep and pervasive interconnections that affect women detrimentally.

8.3 : What is justice?

• Justice includes both retributive justice, which looks at how fair punishments are, and distributive justice, which looks at how fairly society distributes benefits and burdens.
• The principle of formal justice says people should be treated the same when they are similar in relevant respects and differently when they differ in relevant respects.
• Material principles of justice indicate what kinds of differences are “relevant.”

Justice as Merit

• Justice as merit holds that benefits and burdens should be distributed unequally according to people’s ability, effort, achievement, or social status.
• Plato argued that people have different talents and abilities, so society will function best if each person plays the role for which he or she is best suited.
• Critics claim that such inequality is unjust.

Justice as Equality

• Justice as strict equality holds that everyone should have equal shares of society’s benefits and burdens.
• Egalitarians say there are no relevant differences among people, so all should be treated equally.
• Critics reply that people’s needs are relevant when distributing benefits, and their abilities when distributing burdens.
• Justice as moderate egalitarianism holds that political rights and economic opportunities should be distributed equally but that all other economic benefits and burdens should be distributed according to the relevant differences among people.
• Critics respond that even political rights—for example, of criminals—should not be equal and that equality of opportunity is not possible.

Justice as Social Utility

• Justice as social utility holds that benefits and burdens should be distributed so as to maximize social benefits and minimize social harms.
• Critics argue that social utility wrongly implies that injustices such as slavery are sometimes just, and that it is just to sacrifice the welfare of individuals or small groups for the sake of the general welfare.

Justice Based on Need and Ability

• Socialist justice holds that burdens should be distributed by ability and benefits by need.

• Marx argued that people develop their potential by working according to their ability, and distributing benefits by need promotes human happiness.

• Critics reply that this view gives no incentive to work; it may work in families but not in societies; it requires coercion.

Justice Based on Liberty

• Justice in the welfare liberalism of Rawls requires equal liberty in society’s political institutions, equal opportunity for desirable jobs and positions, and the difference principle, which says economic inequalities are just only if they produce benefits for the least advantaged.
• Rawls says these principles are fair to everyone and so would be chosen “behind a veil of ignorance” and would promote social stability.
• Justice in the classical liberalism of Nozick holds that equality and maximum liberty are just in the political arena but that economic goods should be distributed as people freely choose to distribute what they make or are given
  • principles, such as Rawls’s, that distribute goods according to a pattern require unjust coercion when people’s free choices upset that pattern, and this approach will use people as means and take from them what they are entitled to
  • Rawls might reply that his principles do not apply to the kind of individual choices Nozick is talking about, but only to the broad laws and institutions of society.

8.4 : Limits on the state

Law and Morality

• Aquinas distinguished among:
  • eternal law, God’s decrees for the universe
  • natural law, the moral law that is based on human nature
  • human law, the laws that humans create to govern their societies
• A true human law does not violate the moral law and must be obeyed.
• But if a government enacts an unjust law that violates the moral law, it is not a true law and so does not have to be obeyed.
• Critics argue that a true law is any rule that government enacts, including unjust laws; such true laws must be obeyed.
• King agreed with Aquinas and concluded that because discriminatory laws are unjust, they are not true laws and one is not obligated to obey them
  • such civil disobedience must be carried out openly, respectfully, nonviolently, and with a willingness to accept the penalty
• Gandhi argued that one has a right to disobey unjust laws and advocated nonviolent “passive” resistance to unjust laws because using violence to overthrow unjust laws will lead to more violence.
• Williams agreed that unjust laws need not be obeyed, but he argued that violence should be used to deal with unjust laws because nonviolence is ineffective.

Freedom

• Fearing the “tyranny of the majority” - the tendency of society to suppress anything it dislikes
• Mill says that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, %%is to prevent harm to others%%.”

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” - John Mill Stuart

• He argues that this promotes social utility because free thinking and debate help achieve the truth
  • and letting people live as they want helps prove the worth of different forms of life
  • lets people do what is in their best interests, and develops their abilities
• So, government must leave people free to think, live, and associate as they want.

Human Rights

• Positive rights impose duties on government to provide for their people
• Negative rights restrict the government from interfering in people’s lives, this is liberty
  • Moral or human rights are rights that all humans have.
• Each person has a duty to respect other people’s freedom and to help others achieve their happiness.
• Donaldson claims that moral rights must protect things of great importance that are subject to substantial and recurrent threat and must impose fair and affordable obligations.
• He claims that all governments must respect such rights and that wealthier nations should help the poorer ones provide such rights.

War and Terrorism

• Political “realists” such as Hobbes argue that because nations exist in a state of nature without a “common power” to enforce justice
  • they are in a “state of war” in which concepts of morality or justice do not apply
• So, violence between nations is neither right nor wrong but only for or against a nation’s best interests.
• Critics argue that because acts of war are acts of human individuals, we can and do apply moral concepts to acts of war; moreover, there are international bodies that can enforce justice.
• Absolute pacifists hold that war is always immoral either on religious grounds or because the evils of war always outweigh the good war might produce, or because the violence of war violates human dignity.
• Critics argue there are some goods that outweigh the evils of war, that it is not wrong to defend oneself or others against unjust attack, and that pacifism is inconsistent because if people have a right not to be subjected to violence, then they have a right to be defended from violence even with violence.
• Conditional pacifists hold that although there might be some goods that could justify some low levels of violence
  • modern wars inflict so much violence that their violence outweighs any possible good that could be achieved.
• Critics point out that the view of the conditional pacifist implies that the costs of war have to be weighed against its benefits.
• The just war theory of Aquinas says that war is morally justified if it is (nine principles of just war)
  • (1) declared by a legitimate authority
  • (2) fought for a just cause
  • (3) fought with a right intention—the intention to achieve the just end and not to inflict needless injuries
• Others have added that a just war
  • (4) must be fought as a last resort
  • (5) when there is a real and certain danger
  • (6) a reasonable probability of success
  • (7) the end is proportional to the probable harm
• These are jus ad bellum (justice when approaching war) conditions.
• The two main jus in bello (justice when in war) conditions of just war theory are
  • (1) the means used must be proportional to the end
  • (2) combatants must not intentionally target noncombatants and must be able to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants
• Eastern philosophies such as Sikhism have also developed similar theories of just war.
• Political realism would not condemn terrorism as immoral, and it would claim that it is not wrong to use any amount of violence to protect a nation’s citizens from terrorists.
• Pacifism would condemn terrorism as immoral but would not approve using violence in pursuit of terrorists.
• Just war theory would condemn terrorism because it is usually violence that is not authorized by a legitimate authority
  • it is usually not for a just cause and is motivated by revenge
  • it has no clear goal, and there is little hope that the violence will achieve its goal
  • most important, it targets and kills innocent noncombatants.
• Just war theory would approve the use of violence against terrorists only if it adheres to the nine principles of just war.
• Defenders of terrorist tactics argue that some forms of terrorism can meet the conditions of just war theory and so can be morally justified
  • particularly when all citizens of a target nation actively support an unjust government that is oppressing the terrorists
  • so these citizens can be treated as combatants by the terrorists

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