In an assault on the hypocrisy of the political-philosophical arguments of the ruling class that ordered the death of his teacher, Plato makes the Senate, look like fools.
The fact that Kierkegaard's...
The fact that Kierkegaard's...
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07/03/2010 Modern times have obviously proven Marx' assumptions of the self-destructive tendency of capitalism to be much more latent and controllable. The dynamic and destructive capitalist economy which 1) replaced exploitation veiled with religion with blatant exploitation and 2) destroyed its own means of preventing future crises has again become a more veiled form of exploitation and has proven to have a much greater capacity to prevent crises through human constructions such as the federal reserve board and government crisis monetary backing. Things such as these show capitalist society to be more tenacious than Marx thought. How does this effect his claim to scientific status? Marxism is still a very exact and penetrating critique -- but what level of science can it claim? Rousseau and Locke differ in many ways. Rousseau creates a utopian society designed to give all men equal representation under the law. Rousseau claims that from Civil Liberty man gains "what is called Moral Liberty which alone makes him master of himself; for the impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty" (Rousseau, P.196). In the state of nature, there are certain natural inequalities, strength, age, and sex that allow some individuals to have more liberties than others hold. The social contract removes these inequalities, and, because all inequalities are given up before forming a Commonwealth, it makes all men equal under the law. The society Locke creates, known as capitalism, is a system of greed and unequality that can not be justified. No man has the right to appropriate more than his share. If he does this takes away from the ability of others to self persevere and we will have reverted back to a state of war that both Locke and Rousseau claim was the reason for setting up a society. The Second Treatise on Government should be renamed the Second Treatise on Maintaining, Greed, Wealth, and Power, because that is what it is. Locke's arguments favor those who have wealth. Those who have none are left to try to obtain property and wealth in a system designed to maintain the status quo of those with wealth and property. Therefore, the factory worker who labours ninety hours a week never obtains wealth and property although he has laboured long and hard. However, the wealthy son of the landowner, who has never worked a day in his life, maintains the wealth of his ancestry without the least bit of labour. Under Rousseau's system the people, who are supposed to act for the general good, could pass legislation creating greater economic equality amongst the population. |
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03/03/2010 Machiavelli employs the conditional patterns of argumentation developed by the Stoic logicians. He frequently uses the dilemma form since this is useful for presenting alternative courses of action along with their consequences. He skillfully avoids being caught in false dilemmas, however. For example, when considering whether it is better to be loved or feared, he first points out that it is desirable--though not easy--to be both loved and feared. Plato believed that the ruler without moral virtue was unjust. A true ruler was just regardless of the circumstances. By doing evil to those evil men, are we not adding to their evil, making them more evil? It follows that justice involves the actual creation of evil. The nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill believed that for man to be truly free the rights and liberties of the individual must be guaranteed. Mill was concerned with what he called "Civil or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised over the individual" (Mill 13). Mill argues that there are two distinct parts of a person's life; that part of a person's life that "concerns himself only," and that part "which concerns others" (74). |