Political compass

An Exploration of Utilitarianism When looking at our nation as it is today, it seems almost impossible that there was a time at which we were without a state. The state plays a more active role in our lives today than ever before. All throughout time, many philosophers, as well as everyday people, evaluate whether or not a state is justified, and if it is, who should rule. While most would agree that the state is justified, there are many different ideas as to how much power the state should…

as “nonsense on stilts” is directly referring to his rejection of the notion of natural rights, and whilst some argue for the existence of natural rights, it seems that rights are generally agreed to be a social construct. For Bentham and other political thinkers natural rights do not exist because they are unfounded, and are equally unenforceable. Similarly, whilst Bentham…

Rhetoric, as a practice, is as old as human society itself. As long as there have been crowds in streets or on forums, people have spoken to sway them; as long as social conditions have existed, people have agitated to change them, and as soon as writing was created, it was used to influence the actions of others. In the ostensibly democratic Athens (at least for free men born in the city to native parents) (Goldstein 88), Aristotle emphasized the role of rhetoric in persuading one’s fellow…

English philosopher, political economist, and liberal John Stuart Mill published one of his most famous works in 1859: On Liberty. Mill explores the innate and given liberties of people, analyzing what is the extent in which society or government has valid reasons to exercise power over its people. He argues that the individual should not be under the jurisdiction of society or government if their actions are not harming anyone but themselves. The only time society or government should involve…

Thomas Nagel is a New York University professor and has written many things regarding the mind and moral theory. In moral luck Nagel thinks through the whole Kantian view of morality which shows that everyone is equal participants in the moral enterprise. Nagel argues that the Kantian view is too simple and doesn’t take into account the way external factors impinge upon us. Nagel brings up four different types of moral luck: constitutional luck, circumstantial luck, consequential luck which…

that human nature is good, not evil, meaning that states thrive in a world governed by morality and law. States want to cooperate to achieve mutual goals in peace. Just like realism, liberalism derives from the observations and interpretations of political situations. Liberalism argues for human rights, parliamentary democracy, and free trade, while also maintaining that all such goals begin within the state. Liberalists want to focus more on the individual’s liberty, while realists will…

seeks to study the structure of the international system and its effects on the behavior of States. The two main characteristics of the international system are Anarchy and Relative Capacity (Power). Waltz adopts three principles from the domestic political structure in his analysis namely; the principle by which the system is ordered, the function each unit fulfills and each unit capacity or ability to act. He concluded that the fundamental goal of every state in the International System is to…

there was a world in which no one had a moral compass. There would be nothing stopping someone from doing anything, as nothing would be seen as “wrong” or “right.” It would be a real life Lord of the Flies, with savagery and disorder being commonplace. But what is a moral compass anyway? The dictionary definition defines it as “a person's ability to judge what is right and wrong and act accordingly,” but is there more to it than that? The use of moral compass can be seen almost anywhere, whether…

society as the laws of nature would suggest, they form a political society. If these people then choose democracy as their form of government, then they agree to comply with the will of the majority. Baron De Montesquieu’s views on the matter focus on the premises that if Catalonia secedes, they would fail as a small republic. For a republic to successes, it must not be too small nor too…

Ted Talk Brave New World Jean Jacques Rousseau once said that every man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. He pointed out that the line between freedom and slavery is a fine one, and how easy it sometimes blends into one. Are we really free, or have we been so conditioned into believing that we are that we have lost the meaning of freedom? Maybe we have inevitably enslaved ourselves, perhaps by the technology we use, or the lives we lead or even by the people around us. For instance,…