Theory Thinkers And Ideas

Question 1

Leopold - dialectical presentation of the development between the self (individual) and its other (their social position and wider community)

Answer 1

Pre-capitalist society: undifferentiated unity
Capitalist society: differentiated disunity
Communist society: differentiated unity

Question 2

Leopold on Marx’s view of human nature

Answer 2

While some say that Marx denies universality, this is false, he recognises constant and variable qualities (human nature in general VS human nature in each epoch)

Question 3

Leopold definitions ode to alienation + subtypes of it

Answer 3

Alienation: dysfunctional relation between entities
Subjective alienation: presence or absence of certain beliefs and feelings (eg feeling estranged)
Objective alienation: humans fail to develop or deploy their essential characteristics

Question 4

Elster, why self-realization is more important than consumption

Answer 4

1) It has increasing marginal utility
2) doing something that is esteemed by other peopleciscthecmost important source of self-esteem which motivates us to continue living

Question 5

Elster, why self-realization doesn’t happen under capitalism

Answer 5

Lack of desire, opportunity or both

Question 6

Elster, alienation as lack of autonomy causes + response

Answer 6

Capitalism creates a compulsive desire for consumption
Response1: not all consumption under capitalism is compulsive (motivation is more complex)
Response2: links to capitalism are not always unique

Question 7

Elster, stages or rule of capital over labour

Answer 7

Formal subsumption: worker gets wage to make raw materials into product
Real subsumption: in the factory production process, the worker is an appendage of the machine
Labor becomes a means for its own enslavement BUT this actually blunts motivation to abolish capitalism

Question 8

Cohen functional explanation

Answer 8

Something - e (birds having hollow bones) which has a certain effect f (flight facilitation) is explained by that certain effect

Used on base and superstructure:
Superstructures hold foundations together AND superstructure is explained by the nature of the base

Use on link between tech development and production relation: the prevailing production relations prevail because they are relations which advance the development of the productive forces

Question 9

Cohen - “primacy thesis”

Answer 9

The level of development of productive power explains the nature of economic structure

Question 10

Cohen, “development thesis”

Answer 10

The productive forces tend to develop throughout history

Question 11

Cohen, “development thesis”

Answer 11

The productive forces tend to develop throughout history

Question 12

Elster, problems with Marx + more plausible account of relationship between development of forces of production and relations of production

Answer 12

1) no account of how less then optimal character of existing relations of production motivates individual men to collective action
2) no historical proof
More plausible account: capitalism meant a higher surplus at a given technical level (link to individual motivation and tech development is a byproduct)

Question 13

Elster, potential responses to the problem that the change from capitalism to communism is implausible

Answer 13

1) communist revolution is caused by something else but will coincide with the emergence of contradiction between forces and relations of production
2) communism happens when capitalism becomes inefficient with respect to the use of productive forces (not development) eg unemployment, wasted goods
3) stages of innovation: 1) search for new methods 2) selection of new methods - capitalism is worse at second (marx argued this but it seems reasonable to reject both)

Question 14

Locke, limitations of the legislative

Answer 14

1) have to govern by laws established which do nit discriminate
2) laws have to be designed to maximise common good (no right to destroy, enslave or designedly impoverish subjects)
3) cannot take part of their subject’s property without their consent
4) legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws into other hands because it is delegated from the people

Question 15

Lebovics, two key things to note about Locke’s account of property

Answer 15

1) act of combining labour with property did not require the common consent of the rest of mankind
2) Locke did not differentiate between our own labour and that of living chattels and employees

Question 16

Cohen, Motivational possibility of Rousseau’s account

Answer 16

Rousseau advances an account of human nature where human beings are naturally good but society depraves them and makes them miserable

Question 17

Cohen, Institutional possibility of Rousseau’s account

Answer 17

How can people acquire the general will, think of each other as equals and prioritise the common good

Question 18

Okin, reasons why women can only be a part of the sovereign through the goodwill of their housbands

Answer 18

1) women have sexual and emotional power over men
2) women get pregnant—> incapacitated
3) husband has to superwise wife to make sure kids are his
4) women are evil

Question 19

Okin, reasons why women can only be a part of the sovereign through the goodwill of their housbands

Answer 19

1) women have sexual and emotional power over men
2) women get pregnant—> incapacitated
3) husband has to superwise wife to make sure kids are his
4) women are evil

Question 20

Cohen, Rousseau allows for checks and balances

Answer 20

Check 1: sovereign exercises check on the government
Check 2: government exercises check on the sovereign by proposing laws which the sovereign may or may not pass (Letters from the Mountain)

Question 21

Bertram, Condorcet response to the disagreement objection

Answer 21

Assembly is an epistemic device for getting an answer to what the general will is
Condorcet shows that providing only that each citizen has a better than 50:50 chance of bringing right, as the number of citizens increases, the probability of being right approaches 1

Question 22

Bertram, why Rousseau has been called despotic

Answer 22

1) separation of the general will and the will of all means that people can’t use their true will
2) total alienation in social pact leaves citizens no recourse against an all powerful sovereign
3) indivisibility of sovereign power means there are no checks and balances
4) mo possibility of citizen self-organization -> citizens are at the mercy of the elite government
5) manipulation or the citizen by the lawgiver

Question 23

Dunn, filmer’s account of rights of rulers

Answer 23

No human has right over his own life and human rulers had the right to take take the rights of own or foreign subjects when in their judgement they sufficiently damaged the public good
This means they derived their rights not from subjects but God
Rights of rulers are essentially rights of ownership

Question 24

Dunn, the centrality of trust in Locke

Answer 24

Locke doesn’t distrust political authority but human beings left to their own devices
Even the sovereign can betray trust, the remedy of betrayal of trust is the right of revolution
Locke downplays the implications
1) no ruler who truly means the good of his people will fail to make them feel this
2) stray acts of tyranny will pass unchallenged, victims cannot in practice expect the support of others
3) only a clear threat, actual or potential, to the estates, liberties and lives of the majority will bring resistance

Question 25

Simmons, role of rights in Locke

Answer 25

Rights are not just the flip side of duties
Rights and duties are equally fundamental because Locke believes in a robust zone of indifference in which rights protect our ability to make choices