The Role of Government Hobbes

The Role of Government

• Hobbes

• Justice only exists though government
• Life without government is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”

• Thoreau: “That government is best which governs least”

Political Philosophies

• Justification of government

• The nature of justice

• The individual versus the state

• Civil disobedience

Anarchism

• Naive anarchism: people can live in peace without government

• Militant anarchism: government is unjustified and must be overthrown

• Theoretical anarchism: government has no legitimate authority, but may be necessary

Robert Paul Wolff's In Defense of Anarchism

• Authority means the right to command and to be obeyed

• An autonomous person makes moral decisions and lives by them

• An autonomous person cannot recognize an outside authority, such as the state

Social Contract Theory

• Hobbes’ Leviathan

• Human nature is warlike
• Peace is achieved by forming contracts

• Locke’s An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government

• Some rights are inalienable
• Governments exist to protect our rights

The Question of Justice

• Retributive justice: the proper allotment of punishment proportionate to the severity of a crime

• Distributive justice: the proper distribution of benefits and burdens

Justice as Merit

• Justice means people get what they are due according to their merit

• Plato

• Meritocracy: political power is proportional to merit
• Democracy is equivalent to mob rule
• Intellectual elite should rule society
• The Republic

Justice as Conformity to Natural Law

• Natural law transcends human conventions

• All morally aware people can recognize natural law

• Aquinas’ Summa Theologica

Justice as Social Utility: John Stuart Mill

• Principle of utility: a just society will minimize social harms and maximize social benefits

• Utilitarianism

• People maintain many conflicting theories of justice
• Utility should be the deciding factor

Justice as Fairness: John Rawls

• People possessing merit are just lucky and should not be rewarded

• Criticism of utilitarianism: majority should not win at expense of minority

• Justice is accepted only if it is seen as fair

Rawls’ A Theory of Justice

• Original Position: what if we could create our own society?

• Veil of ignorance: no one would know one’s social position in advance

• Principles of justice

• Equal liberty
• Fair equality of opportunity

A Feminist Critique of Rawls

• Susan Moller Okin

• Justice, Gender, and the Family

• Rawls fails to address gender inequality
• What if those on the original position don’t know what sex they will be?

The Individual and the State

• Extreme positions

• Anarchism
• Absolute totalitarianism

• Moderate positions

• Individualism
• Collectivism

Classical Liberalism

• Freedom of the individual

• John Stuart Mill: On Liberty

• Power is only justifiable when used to prevent harm to others
• People must be free to seek happiness by their own methods

Marxism

• Economics is the root of human existence

• Class struggle is constant through history

• Capitalism exploits the workers

• History is a dialectical process

• Capitalism will undermine itself and lead to communism

Marx’s Communist Manifesto

• Society is based on the struggle of bourgeoisie and proletariat

• Calls for abolition of private property

• Philosophies are shaped by material existence

• Proletariat must wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie

Civil Disobedience

• An illegal action performed for the purpose of making a moral protest

• Must be public

• Protesters generally should be willing to accept consequences

• Generally nonviolent

The Case against Civil Disobedience

• A violation of the social contract

• Majority rule

• Ends that do not justify the means

• Other alternatives

Plato's Crito

• Disobeying the law is exchanging evil for evil

• A state cannot exist if the laws have no power

• By living in a place we agree to abide by its laws

The Case for Civil Disobedience

• Preservation of moral integrity

• The duty to combat immorality

• A means of social progress

• No practical alternative

• Government may exceed its authority

Mohandas K. Gandhi

• Opposed discriminatory laws

• Helped end British governance of India

• Nonviolent resistance - satyagraha

Gandhi’s Young India

• If a leader is unjust, the subjects have a duty to disobey

• Imprisonment is better than freedom won through acceptance of injustice

• Civil Disobedience must never descend into general lawlessness

Martin Luther King Jr.

• Helped overturn segregation laws and pass the Civil Rights Act

• Letter from Birmingham Jail

• Direct action is used to force negotiation
• An unjust law violates the moral law or law of God