Thinkerz Add TO EACH CARD INFO AB VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE Flashcards
Liberalism Key Thinkers
- John Locke
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- John Stuart Mill
- Thomas Hill Green
- Betty Friedan
- John Rawls
John Locke
Liberalism Thinker
- Argued that humans are naturally free, not under anybodys authority
- In his work ‘Two treaties of government’ he argued for a minimal state
- In his view of the state of nature, humans were in a state of peace not war
- In this state of nature, there will be clashes of interest between individuals, so as rational individuals they will enter a social contract to form the state to act as a neutral umpire
- The state only emerges when the people consent to create it
- The state is limited by constitutionalism, separating power between the executive and legislature to prevent abuse of power
- The state should directly represent the will of property owning individuals
Mary Wollstonecraft
Liberalism Thinker
- Had a positive view of human nature, but pushed it for both men and women, she said that the existing state and society thought women were not rational because women had no formal equality(equality under the law) - ‘virtue can only flourish among equals’
-Women shold have the right to property as it is essential to freedom and individualism, education, to allow reason to prosper, and right to vote, to ensure government by consent
- Women should be granted right to divorce and protection against domestic violence. The right to property and employment ensures women arent forced to marry out of financial necessity
- Rejected the societal view that women are defined by their looks
- By granting formal equality and women access to educaation, the state would increase societys resources of intellect, wisdom and morality, enabling social and economic progress
- Opposed divine right of kings and the culture behind it
- Pushed for republicanism ( a system with no monarch)
John Stuart Mill
Liberalism Thinker
- provided the bridge between classical liberalism and modern liberalism by developing early liberal thinking on freedom and individualism
- Mill developed the concept of negative freedom, freedom with the absence of restraint, allowing the individual to be free to pursue their own view of the good life
- Govts should make laws that restrict actions that harm others, not those that harm oneself
- Mill saw liberty as more than a right, but a key to the ongoing development and learning of the individual.
- Liberty is the driver of progress for the individual and allows the individual to acheive individuality. Individuality is good for society because a diversity of character and culture enables reasonable debate, discussion and argument to drive a society forward.
- Mill viewed eccentricity positively.
- In order to foster diversity, Mill said govt and society should only be limited by the harm principle
- The role of the state is to enable people constantly to improve their mind and to increase their higher pleasures
- Mill worried that Lockes principle of representative govt will lead to tyranny of the majority with increasing suffrage and an uneducated electorate. This would infringe on the rights of the minorities
- Mills solution was representative govt but with a well-educated electorate. The representatives will make better decisions as they will see to the needs of all individuals, not only the majority
Thomas Hill Green
Liberalism
- Pushed for positive freedom, with the govt playing a more active role in individuals lives
- Loved the common good, e.g. public infrastructure, NHS
- Freedom should not be seen in a purely negative sense but in a positive sense aswell
- Positve freedom can only be achieved by removing hereditary priveledge in society and tackling poverty, but within a capitalist society
- Hill was active in educational reform
- Hill said the state has a positive responsibility to free the poor from ignorance, disease, poor quality housing and exploitation in the workplace
Betty Friedan
Liberalism Thinker
- Approached modern liberalism in relation to true gender equality
- She believed the state has to take a further role in solving the imbalance between the sexes
- Frieden said that society made women miserable by pushing the role of wives and mothers upon them
- Women could be liberated by working outside the household. Marriagw, motherhood and a proffessional career could all be sustained and balanced, but would require a shift in society’s attitudes and practical help by the state in areas such as childcare
- Friedan argued public values, social institutions and leadership styles needed to be changed for all people to achieve personal fulfillment
- She founded the National Organisation for Women in 1966 to bring this about, this was modelled on the NAACP
- This change would require the state to actively intervene in inequality
John Rawls
Liberalism Thinker
- Rawls supported the liberal idea of foundational equality
- Developed the principle of the original position, a thought process where people construct the society that they live in
- In this context, a rational individual would choose a more socially and economically equal society, as avoiding poverty is a more powerful motivation than the desire for great wealth. Therefore a larger enabling state with some wealth redistribution via taxation is consistent with the wider liberal goals of freedom and equality of opportunity
- This leads to the difference principle. Inequalities of wealth are legitimate as they motivate individuals to work harder but only as long as they raise the income and wealth of the least advantaged
- Equal Opportunities principle - Inequalities should exist if ‘attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity’. e.g. Rawls would apporve of contextual offers for universities
Conservative Thinkers
- Thomas Hobbes
- Edmund Burke
- Michael Oakeshott
- Ayn Rand
- Robert Nozick
Thomas Hobbes
Conservative Thinker
- Negative view of human nature, very gloomy and cynical. Saw humans as relentless when in pursuit of power in order to satisfy their immediate desires and potential future desires. This desire for power is selish and competitive, and is evidence of Hobbes emphasis on the individual.
- Humans are roughly equal in strength and ability, so must always be fearful of others, as the ‘weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest’
- In Hobbes state of nature, resources are scarce, therefore given humans’ roughly equal desire for power, there will be a ‘war … of every man against every man’ and ‘ notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place’
- He said life in the state of nature will be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’
- The first natural law is that man should seek peace as far as he can and if not, use war
- As humans are rational they will rise above the state of nature in order to self preserve. A social contract will be formed to achieve this
- The social contract establishes a sovereign, who will provide order, security and stability, this will lead to the emergence of society
- Hobbes stressed that sovereign power be placed in one supreme authority that had no restrictions placed on it by other bodies
- His preference of government was the monarchy, but his works can apply to all govts with one supreme authority
- The social contract is made between the people, not between the people and the sovereign. When the contract is complete, the power of the people is ended and the sovereign has all the power, and the people only have rights granted by the sovereign
Edmund Burke
Conservative Thinker
-Father of conservatism
- Supported the American revolution as the rights of the American people predated the British began to tax them
- Did not support the French Revolution because it was based on abstract theory born out of frustration with the French power structure
- Had a sceptical view of human nature, saw individuals as foolish but the species as wise
- Argued humans couldnt rely upon indivdual reason, butrely on tradition and custom
- Opposed Hobbes social contract and said the only contract that existed was between ‘The dead, the living and the yet to be born’. The present must nurture and protect past tradition and custom to pass on to duture generations
- The French revolution opposed this as it destroyed existing practises
- Burke was critical of individualism. ‘Little platoons’ are the places where traditions and customs are formed, which are the banks of knowledge developed from trial and error
- Attacked the French Revolution’s emphasis on equality as he argued hierarchy was necessary
Michael Oakeshott
Conservative Thinker
- He saw humans as fragile and fallible, unable to understand the world as it is too complex for us to understand
- Highly critical of rationalism, which is remaking society based on abstract ideas of political philosophers
- Abstract ideas will always fail as they are not based on concrete experience. The remaking of society does damage to traditions which are based on hundreds of years of experience.
- Humans prefer ‘the familiar to the unknown… the actual to the possible’
- Oakeshott rejected the politics of faith, he proposed the politics of skepticism as the govts attempts to perfect mankind are dangerous for human liberty and dignity
- The idea of perfectionism is absurd as there should be scepticism about the ability of the govt, which is made of people who are human like us, to use their power justly and efficiently. The govts power should be limited to preserving public order
- Conservatism is a disposition not ideology
- ‘ In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor food for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.’
Ayn Rand
Conservative thinker
- Opposed statism and collectivism
- She didnt like big states, this could be attributed to how when she was growing up in Russia, her family wealth and property was lost during the uphevals. Her family was wealthy before this
- She offered a new concept of rational and ethical egoism called objectivism. This is seen as radical individualism
- She argued that man should exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself for others, nor others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral pursuit of his own life.
- The ideal social system is free-market capitalism, which involves a separation of state and economics’. This system protects the rights of the individual to use their own mind, act on their own judgement, work for their values, and keep the products of their own labour.
- Her view is meritocratic rather than hierachical; the most talented indiviuals start businesses, invent new technologies and create ideas and art through their own talents and trade with other rational egoists to reach their goals
- The states role is vital but should be limited to acting as a policeman, protecting the rights of individuals against criminals and foreign invaders
Robert Nozick
Conservative Thinker
-Key thinker of the New Right
- Broke free from Hobbesian tradition and had an optimistic view of human nature
- All individuals have self-ownership; they are the owners of their own body, mind and abilities
- He saw individuals as having their own ends and projects to which they rationally devote themselves. Individuals have rights that existed before any social contract or state and ‘there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)’
- Any attempt to achieve social justice via the redistibution of wealth and progressive taxation is an assault on liberty, as ‘taxation of earnings is on par with forced labour’
- The individual should be allowed to keep the fruits of their labour as they have been earned in a free market through their hard work and talents
- He propsed the ‘Wilt Chamberlain’ argument. W.C asked that he earned 25 cents off every ticket sold to the basketball game. Nozick supported this because he earned it through his own labour and the contract was freely entered by all parties
- A minimum state could be argues if it is limited to protecting the person, property, and contract. This is a concession to the conservative view that the state does not need to be strong but limited, to provide the necessary order for liberty to flourish
- There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives’ who are dignified and rational in pursuit of their own goals rather than brutishly competitive atoms
- The minimal state is just but inspiring. It allows for the emergence and coexistance of voluntarily formed communities, with their own morals, values, and ideals. As long as individuals are free to contract in or out of these communities, it allows them to fully explore and live their own lfe
Socialism Key Thinkers
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Beatrice Webb
- Anthony Crosland
- Anthony Giddens
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Socialism Thinkers
- The key idea is that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The history of conflict between the oppressed and the oppressor that ends in the remaking of society along comminist lines
- Capitalism has split society into two, the bourgoisie and proletariet
- The bourgoisie’s values are reflected by the law, religion, education, politics, media, the arts, the culture. The ideological superstucture creates a false consciousness among the proletariet that makes them believe there is no alternative to the current state of the world
- The materialism base is means of production, technology, raw material, land, factories
- A communist society cannot be created in a bourgoisie state, so a revolution is necessary
- Socialism is inevitable as it is driven by historical materialism and it must be delivered from below by the working classes
- The revolution must be followed by a dictatorship of the proletriat to bring all private property into common ownership and defend the gains of the revolution against the dispossessed bourgoisie
- The dictatorship of the proletariat is a transition to the abolition of all classes into a classless society, where the state will wither away. Society will be ordered on the principle, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’
