From Plato through Rawls Political Theory - Case Study Example

From Plato through Rawls Political Theory Question One: Thrasymachus makes Plato’s Republic and realpolitik in the Machiavelli book “The Prince” Which doctrine is superior to the other? Plato uses Cephalus to represent the argument that with money, one has the power to clear debts, achieve a better life and attain justice. Although Socrates insists that there is no distinct definition of justice, Plato defines justice as the advantage of the stronger (Adams and Dyson 4). The strength of any community comes from the governing law that is most often in the interests of the ruling party. This conventionalist position, though not right, provides a formal version of hesiodic association of just conduct wins the aspect of abiding by the laws. This definition of justice is supported by Socrates’ argument that what is lawful or nomimon is identical to what is just or dikaion, while Antiphon argues that justice is not violating the laws of where one is a citizen (Adams and Dyson 5). In summary, Plato is more concerned with the sociological definition of justice and argues that laws differ from polis to the other based on the ruling regime. Additionally, law is everywhere and identical in ruling powers. Hence, Plato uses a debunking that is purely based on sociological observation evident even in modern day texts such as wealth and power, and the pleasures that come along with them form the advantage along, which the advantage must be assessed. Conversely, Machiavelli’s realpolitik argument focuses on the pursuit of national interests by leaders. In their leadership, political leaders do not consider philosophical or ethical aspects (Adams and Dyson 35-36). According to Machiavelli, Christianity contributed greatly in defining the impact of morality in politics resulting in the consideration that politics was both a worldly and moral practice. However, secularization of political authority both in and outside religious practices made Machiavelli unveiled a layer of hypocritical honesty, integrity, morality, and Christian virtues and practices. The presence of such veneer in Christianity created a dark world led by ruthless, greed, lies, murder, deception, and hypocrisy. According to Machiavelli, a dark world still exists and like in Italy and elsewhere, powerful princes use the powers of this world to not only to gain power, but also to establish stability (Adams and Dyson 38). The argument by Machiavelli is more powerful. Like Plato, Machiavelli supports that power dominates justice for many reasons. For instance, he reveals that leaders should always be in masks and never reveal to their people who they really are such that his intentions and true self, true goals, and the drive in his actions is not revealed. The implication of revealing one’s true self is that it always works against a leader as it destroys the leaders’ to attain his objectives. Additionally, as a prince, one must be ready to act against humanity, religion, and charity, and ready to act according to the wave of the fortune (Adams and Dyson 40). Further, a prince must avoid hate from the people, revealing his intentions about morality, obtain esteem from his accomplishments, and should observe consistency. Since a prince must avoid hatred from the people, but must be ready to act inhumanely, then Plato argues that the ruling regime determines a given community inconsequentiality. This is because the same people have the power to determine the reaction of the prince who has to be consistent and always put on a mask. Additionally, modern day citizens want their leaders to act ethically in order to pursue a goal. For instance, citizens easily forget ethical violations during instances where their prosperity and success are endangered. This coincides with Machiavelli’s argument of easy reconciliation of good with the bad thus making leaders within their people’s goodwill. Question #2: speculation on the causes of modern models of bounded rationality founded on uncertain information, and why John Rawls represents ignorance to the principle of justice. Although it may seem right and acceptable, the aspect of bounded rationality has been criticized because even with full information, some decisions are never fully thought through (Adams and Dyson 222). Consequently, such decisions can only be rational within cognitive and time capacity limits. Consequently, the main causes of bounded information are human mind constraints, and the structure within which the operation of the mind occurs. The four principles of intended rationality a principle of intended rationality, adaptation, uncertainty, and trade-offs. The intended rationality principle involves the concept that persons are goal-based, and the only way to understand them is to explore the way in which reasoning and expressive constitutions concurrently endorse and inhibit with goal-directed conducts (Adams and Dyson 222). The implication here is that behavior does not determine a person’s conduct, but instead a person’s behavior depends on both rational and non-irrational aspects binding rationality. Additionally, Simon argued that it is not all the time that people do all calculations, thus introducing the aspect of bounded rationality. The principle of adaptation reveals that human thought conforms to the form of the tasks facing it. This means that human thought relates to and is basically rational and confined to the intrinsic qualities of the internal environment of thoughtful beings that constrains the adaptation of thought of shape to figure the problem environment (Adams and Dyson 223). The uncertainty principle requires that any sound decision be founded on a person’s understanding of uncertainty with respect to the probability calculus. Consequently, it becomes possible to expected utility and perceives the outcomes as based on a probability distribution. However, working with probabilities is hard, especially when assessing risks, and making inferences in times of uncertainty. Finally, the tenet of trade-offs introduces the aspect that human choices are difficult in situations requiring trading off or forfeiting one goal for another. During trade-off situations, Simon argued that people have higher tendency to go for options that are good enough. Although this may be criticized as being a poverty-stricken maximization concept, it is consistent bounded rationality. According to John Rawls, justice is fairness and implies that citizens hold equal basic rights in an egalitarian economic system (Adams and Dyson 224). Rawls beginnings of the society and citizens are abstract and innocuous. However, through the original position, Rawls aimed at transferring from abstract to determinate principles of social justice. The concept of the original position is characterized by ignorance that prevents the influence of arbitrary facts concerning citizens on agreements among their agents. Through this argument, Rawls ignorantly refuses to concur that social institutions are not expected to favor or disfavor people given their race, gender, or class. This implies that in their original position, all parties are deprived facts regarding their citizens that are irrelevant to the choice of principles of justice. Such facts include race, gender, class, natural endowments, and age. Additionally, the Rawls’ cover of ignorance eliminates specific information regarding society’s attainment of a clearer view of permanent features of a just social system. However, the representatives of the society understand that citizens have varying comprehensive doctrines; society has moderate scarcity conditions, and facts of common sense regarding human social life. Question #3 Liberty in Contemporary political thought The definition and presumption of liberty is that humans are in a state that maintains them in a situation of flawless self-determination to order their actions. The freedom of such actions has never depended on the will of others, but perfectly fits into the will of men without any questions (Adams and Dyson 6). As a first pillar of conservatism, liberty represents the freedom that restricts arbitrary force, and propagates exercise of rights using natural free will such that they can pursue individual dreams to achieve their will without any harm on others. Above all, liberty refers to freedom from government oppression while protecting the government from oppression. Liberty also implies that no one should justify the limitation of freedom through coercive means such as law and political authority that limit citizens’ liberty. Additionally, liberty requires that any limitation must be justified to make such it fairly modest. With regard to the government, limitations are only justifiable where the government is limited. Conversely, the government’s main role is to ensure that justice prevails and that each person or citizen within its jurisdiction has equal rights to the most extensive system in upholding equal. Basically, Rawls emphasizes that the equal basic liberty system upheld by any government must be compatible with a system for all (Adams and Dyson 223). Besides promoting freedom of citizens, liberty can be positive, negative or republican. In negative liberty, the government seeks to ensure that no citizen coerces others without compelling justification. This means that the citizens perceive liberty as an opportunity-concept where freedom does not go beyond what a person can do, and the opportunities open to them without consideration for whether or not liberals exercise their freedom options. However, positive liberty emphasizes the concept of freedom governed by free will that does subject the person to an impulse or craving. In such instances, the person’s acts will be governed by the will of others. Consequently, positive liberty is an exercise-concept such that a person’s freedom is self-determined and dependent on their life. When provided with such liberty, citizens are subjected to no compulsions and do not forfeit their long-term goals for pleasures that are just short-term. However, Plato and Aristotle defined the aspect of and created the aspect of philosophical foundations. In their definition, Plato and Aristotle sought the integration of rational freedom to polity where they defined humans as zoon politikon or social animal that though autonomous forms part of the society (Adams and Dyson 11). As a result, humans do not need liberty to as social beings, but the opportunity to acknowledge essential human potentialities within the political community not against, but in relation to others. Plato, for instance, denies the liberal conception of freedom as arbitrary, empiristic, and individualistic. However, Plato defined morality and norms as arbitrary and conventional and not based on objectivity (Adams and Dyson 9). When based on objectivity, individual self-interests ruin public life to the disadvantage of all people. Question #4: Social conditions that enact a state by John Stuart Mill’s Harm thesis With regard to liberty, Mill maintained that any just society should promote the citizen’s freedom to pursue their good in their way and contradicted by Plato, who believed that such self-driven interests would ruin the society. Additionally, Aristotle believed that the only that which contributes to the ultimate end of the existence of humans can be termed as the greatest good (Adams and Dyson 12-13). According to Mill, the greatest good of all is dubious in the most extreme measure given that there is nothing like absolute certainty. Based on Mill, the only exception of absolute certainty is in mathematics. These arguments by Mill are only supported by utilitarianism that views men as a progressive being with permanent interests that utility ultimately appeal to regardless of rising ethical questions (Adams and Dyson 135). With regards to permanent interests that define humans as progressive, Mill introduces a metaphysical tone that contradicts Aristotelian outset of good and generally the onset of classical metaphysical (Adams and Dyson 14). Here, Mill’s only idea of the good is that since each person is distinct, then there are distinct individual good, which then makes human perfection relativistic and that is achieved only through utilizing individual outstanding abilities and powers. The successful exercise of individual good is possible through the right education and intellectual development. Additionally, individual good is only attained through self-discipline, such that a person can attain the optimal potential. In addition, Mill argues that the essence of the greatest good is a choice regardless of the extent of the choice’s correctness. This requires that individuals tolerate the opinions and stances of others and that they remain open-minded such that they can isolate partial truths and truths in people’s perspectives (Adams and Dyson 137). Mill’s proposals on government were based on the argument that governments are never neutral in their effects (Adams and Dyson 137). In order to understand any government, the focus should be based on utility in the greatest sense founded on permanent human interests as progressive. As a result, the evaluation of governments should be based on its capacity to empower each person to establish and practice their capabilities to the highest and through their own means. Although this will result in the attainment of a person’s end, it will result in a means for the community to create and make a better living. In any state, Mill argues that liberty is a crucial human right as it will cause each to seek for their best since it will liberate a diversity of interests to the individual’s good and that of the society. Additionally, liberty nurtures rationality and moral freedom that Mill identifies as crucial in freedom of discussion and thought. Additionally, social conditions allowing individual responsibility for a person’s belief and actions contribute to the happiness of others, since utility determines what is best and right. Further, Mill argues that states musts encourage social institutions that contribute to individuality such that people can engage in free and uncensored discussions provided no harm is done to others. With democracy, Mill argued that it was possible to secure the happiness of all through fostering self-development and individuality, especially the representative government that facilitates intelligent and active participation in the community. Other roles of social conditions required by governments are protection of minority, provision of education, enactment of the local government, and the creation of social institutions that adapt to the place and time of operation (Adams and Dyson 139). Works Cited Adams, Ian and R, W Dyson. Fifty Major Political Thinkers. London: Routledge, 2007.Print. Read More