¶ … right' in the light of Alexis De Tocqueville's book, Democracy in America. The paper further expands on the idea of right as presented by other thinkers including Hegel, Bancroft and most recently Hardt and Negri.
Every person is born with an inherent sense of right and born which may later be altered, shaped or influenced by the society and person's own experiences. Philosophers have always been concerned with what they term the 'idea of right' and have expounded theories on how it is acquired, why it is needed and what happened when it ceases to exist. Alexis De Tocqueville was one such thinker who in his Magnus opus, Democracy in America, instructed readers to acquire an idea of right for he argued that it was impossible to build a great nation without a sense of right and wrong. Here idea of right must not be confused with 'rights' of people or right to certain important things like life, freedom or religion but here right is used in the context of virtue.
Tocqueville maintained that without an idea of right, it was impossible to conceive a great nation. People and governments must know what is right in order to proceed in the most appropriate direction, a direction that would ultimately yield most beneficial results. He wrote in Book I, Chapter 14 of his Democracy in America that: "No great people without an idea of right -- How the idea of right can be given to a people -- Respect for right in the United States -- Whence it rises. After the general idea of virtue, I know no higher principle than that of right; or rather these two ideas are united in one. The idea of right is simply that of virtue introduced into the political world. It was the idea of right that enabled men to define anarchy and tyranny, and that taught them how to be independent without arrogance and to obey without...
In Lincoln's view, the experiment could only succeed through the preservation of the Union without secession; he resolved to restore the rebellious states to the Union and all else would fall to this goal. But the war was very hard and very long, and war by its nature lowers the status of peripheral principles and elevates the central principles in dispute." (Kleinfeld, 1997) Lincoln provided the means for emancipation from
American Political Philosophy: Republicanism Within this paper, the general theory of republicanism will be presented. The conceptualization of republicanism discussed within the paper as an American political philosophy will be based on The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison in 1787. Initially, a brief overview of relevant background information on The Federalist Papers will be provided. This will be followed by a discussion of the primary
First, American ideas about freedom have evolved over time, and this might be the natural model for freedom. To believe that an emerging democracy would immediately look like modern day America ignores the fact that freedom continues to evolve in America. Moreover, freedom is guaranteed by certain institutions, such as an independent judiciary, that generally develop over time. In Presidential address: American freedom in a global age, Eric Foner gives
Regarding the rights of seniors, the Affordable Care Act closed the so-called 'doughnut hole' that did not cover a specific middle range of Medicare drug coverage and the Democrats have strongly resisted attempts to privatize Social Security (What we stand for: Social Security, 2011, Democrats). As is obvious from my analysis perhaps, I side with the Democratic Party. The Republicans have failed to provide any meaningful strategies for healthcare reform,
American Political Behavior Mid-Term and Discussion Chapter and Blog Module 4/Discussion 1 -- Participation of Young Voters Young voter participation has been lagging behind other age groups, which has been a major concern. It is a concern because majority of the population that is eligible to vote comprises of the youth. In a nation where 23% of the people are edible to vote, 17% comprises of the youth (Winograd & Hais, 2009).
American Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century by Edgar AJ. Johnson. (New York: Russell & Russell, 1961). 202 p., (HB119.A2J6). This book is a global look at what motivated colonization economically in the New World, and how American thought began to diverge from English commerce and economic thought. In the book, the author outlines several common economic and political concepts of pre-Revolutionary philosophy. Mainly, Johnson states political and personal beliefs
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