Political Philosophy

I thought this section would be difficult, but it was much more interesting than I thought. The early reference to Abelard and Heloise made me smile. This chapter deals with the philosophy of the state. Every state shares two characteristics: the use of force to maintain obedience and claims a right to demand that obedience from you.

So the fundamental question regarding political philosophy is whether or not any group of people has the right to command. Kant and many members of the Enlightenment feared that submitting to any authority was a denial of one’s own autonomy and reason. The standard solution to this became the social contract (eg. our Constitution). The concept of popular sovereignty is one I’ve thought a lot about recently. I hear people argue that we should obey our leaders without question because Jesus told us to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, while others argue that we should not obey them because they are corrupt. In our country, this is made much simpler by the fact that we, the people, ARE the rulers and leaders. We are the popular sovereigns. It’s time we took responsibility for that instead of griping about “the man” or what the government owes us. Soap box complete.

I agree with philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau on one strong point. “If the state is not kept small enough for everyone to participate in law-making, then so far as he is concerned, tyranny replaces liberty.” The price of freedom is that “all citizens, and not just a few professionals, are going to have to pay attention to public affairs.” Rousseau also believed that people only had a right to make laws if they were genuinely attempting to legislate in the public interest and not their own. One of the conflicts that arises is in this word “freedom”. For some people, freedom equals getting what I want. How do YOU define freedom?

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