Political radicalism

When you hear the name John Locke, what do you think of? In your head you probably think, “Oh thank must be the guy who invented the lock!”. But in reality, John Locke is one of the reason you have so many rights. John Locke is a famous philosopher. He was born in 1632, in England. He thought all men were created equal, which many people disagreed then because most males thought they were superior to females and all African Americans. However, the fourteenth amendment protects former…

In Crusaders and Pragmatists, Stoessinger mainly compares and contrasts two schools of thought in American foreign policy: the crusader and the pragmatist. Stoessinger defines a crusader as someone “whose hallmark is a missionary zeal to make the world better, but often manages to leave it in worse shape than before” due to their undying belief in their ideas while a pragmatist “refuses to get locked into a losing policy, changing directions without inflicting damage to his self-esteem” and is…

Summary: The Law is a well written piece by Frederic Bastiat on the defense of liberty, natural human rights, rule of law, and the importance of true justice. The context of the reading begins with a definition and a purpose of law. Law can be defined as the enforcement of rightful defense via a collective force. Bastiat stated that all purposes of law should be used to protect life, liberty, property and punish plunder. Plunder is defined by Bastiat as taking belongings from one inhabitant…

Karl Marx was a German philosopher in the 1800s, and was known as one of the most influential figures in human history. In the abstract from Marx’s manuscript The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, he claims that “to abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness.” Marx believes that in order to find real self-happiness, people should not have to rely on religion, and that religion should be completely abolished. In his text, he focuses on the…

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…