Locke's assertion that an alien is exempt from the laws of a country to which he is not a citizen is a curious segment of his doctrine. Would an alien then be free to commit crime in a foreign land? W...
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09/03/2010 These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one, the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others. (Rousseau, John-Jacque. "The Social Contract." The Social Contract and Discourses, P. 191) Plato's theory of the soul can be found in his major work, *The Republic*, where it is a response to the challenge of the Sophists as to why one ought to live morally. The Sophists in Plato's time were men who used philosophy for profit, inventing moral loopholes to get people out of obligations, or to excuse what would otherwise be considered immoral behavior. The skeptics ask why one ought to be moral when morality is apparently a social device for maintaining order. But if there are no consequences to "immoral behavior," then there is no motivational pressure for morality. |
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08/03/2010 Dewey is asking us to accept the selective emphasis of the "inconclusive integrity of experience" as a starting point, but by doing so he is guilty of what he criticizes. How can there be "an empirical account of inconclusive integrity of experience," if experience is always changing? There cannot. What would define the account? Experience? Experience cannot be defined if it constantly changes. If experience is constantly changing, it can only be used to direct us to new and better meaning. If the "inconclusive integrity of experience" is the starting point for Dewey's philosophic method, it can not also begin with current society. It must start with the first experience. Either the basis for philosophic discussion is a historical account of the inconclusive integrity of man or the experiences of current society in which one finds oneself. It cannot serve both. One is based upon the refection of historical data without the benefit of experience, the other on the reflection of experience in the current society or culture. The experiences of past cultures may very well have been much different, and therefore they cam to different conclusions about those experiences. Thomas Hobbes philosophized about the Nature of Man in the State of Nature. Hobbes believes that man in the State of Nature, in which there is no sovereign, would live like the beasts of the wild. Hobbes claims that the State of Nature is a State of War, where every man is in competition to survive with every man. There are no laws in the State of Nature, because there is no sovereign to enforce the laws. Therefore every man can do whatever is necessary to survive, regardless of the consequences (Hobbes 186). Hobbes argues that any government is better than the State of Nature or State of War. |