Aristotle, Hobbes, Machiavelli and Bellah
What are the different conceptions of knowledge that inform Hobbes's and Aristotle's respective accounts of politics? Be specific about questions of individualism, virtue, and justice. In Bellah's terms, what kind of politics would they support? How are they related to Bellah's views on the relationship between social science and social life?
Aristotle stated repeatedly that the needs of the state and society overrode individual pleasures, desires and happiness, while Hobbes regarded unchecked individualism as a menace to public peace and good order. Public virtue and justice for Aristotle were not based on purely individual feelings, desires or personal happiness, for "which it is satisfactory to acquire and preserve the good even for an individual, it is finer and more divine to acquire and preserve it for a people and for cities" (Aristotle 2). Virtue is the chief end of political life, but only the vulgar and uneducated believed that it could be based on hedonism and a "life of gratification" (Aristotle 4). It does not come from money, appearance or good fortune, but from training citizens to become "good people who do fine actions" (Aristotle 12). Hobbes had a purely skeptical attitude toward individual virtue and morality, which were purely subjective so that "whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good" (Hobbes, p. 29). In this State of Nature in which individuals acted purely on their own interests and desires, a war of all against all ensued that threatened the survival of everyone. This is why they contracted together to form governments, so that their own lives and property would be protected by the state. According to Robert Bellah, "we Americans take it for granted that "democracy is a good thing, indeed, politically, the best thing, and whatever opposes it is a very bad thing," but this was definitely not the view of Hobbes, Plato, Aristotle or Machiavelli (Bellah vii).
Like most political philosophers before modern times, they assumed that democracy would mean the rule of mob and the impoverished, illiterate masses of peasants, servants and laborers. Machiavelli preferred the rule of a monarch, dictator or military strongman while Hobbes thought that government chosen by the citizens could be a monarchy or a republic run by an assembly, and Aristotle favored a republic with a large middle class over aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy or dictatorship. So did the founders of the American republic for that matter, although some like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were democrats. For most of history, however, democracy had a very bad reputation as an unstable government by the lower orders that almost never survived over the long run. Even Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill feared the tyranny of the majority, although for Bellah a much greater cause for concern was the threat of oligarchy and control by the rich and big business over the political process, which had made the U.S. The most unequal society in the Western world. As Tocqueville noted, the unrestrained individualism in America could lead to a culture of greed, selfishness and withdrawal from public life. If the individual and his desires are paramount, then "the rest of his fellow citizens, they are nothing" (Bellah ix). Hobbes, Aristotle and Machiavelli all opposed this type of unrestrained individualism as highly detrimental to the state and society. Of course, they were all writing at a time when capitalism was in its infancy or in the case of Aristotle hardly existed at all. Their world was still based on agriculture and household economies, with the great aristocrats owning most of the land. They simply did not imagine that all citizens could be equal or have the same individual rights, or that they would even be allowed to vote and participate in government at all. Certainly they could not have regarded women, peasants and slaves as their equals, which is a purely modern concept.
2. What are Hobbes's and Aristotle's respective views of human nature? How do they view the relationship between reason and passion? What is the function of the political system in managing that relationship?
Aristotle had a more sunny and optimistic view of human nature than Hobbes, who was a crude materialist and atheist who thought that most human beings were motivated by greed, egoism and fear. Indeed, Hobbes explicitly rejection any of Aristotle's thought or philosophy in favor of the new science of the 17th...
According to Burge, if Bert would speak of arthritis in the thigh he would, in this case, express a true belief, because the term itself would be used in his society to express inflammations in the thigh and in the joints. The social interpretation described by Burge is meant to explain terms that have a certain perception in a certain society. We would be inclined to believe that a tribal
Her husband ignores her and as she becomes increasingly aware of the wallpaper, she is slowly losing herself. Her worst obstacle is not her illness but her husband and this is the reality that Perkins-Gilman establishes. The conclusion of the story brings us to the realization that the narrator will suffer because she is a women and she finally loses the battle when she confesses that she has "got
Rather than limit themselves to what has always been done, individualism encourages people to explore different personas throughout their life, trying on different identities in school and at work. The idea that the individual is valuable also underlines our modern political system in a progressive fashion. Every person has the right to freedom of expression, even if the majority disagrees with his or her viewpoint -- the minority view may
Bellah sees this as dangerous and particularly dangerous is the faith of 'Shelia-ism,' the idea that a society can survive so long as everyone has his or her own personal moral code. Social commitment is portrayed as the lifeblood of society, yet all too often the pressures to 'make it' in America mean that people must take time away from volunteerism and spend more time at work. Despite high
In her discourse, "The Treasure of the City of Ladies," De Pizan contemplated how human society had developed the psyche and perception that females are inherently inferior to males. This issue was borne out of the author's observation how literary and scholarly works portray a common stereotype of women as subversive to men, depicted as uneducated and not able to create decisions for themselves. In the words of Pizan,
Politics Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1515 and in the story this place of "utopia" is told to him by a friend who encounters it upon his travels. Utopia is described by Giles, More's friend, as a place where there isn't any social unrest and suffering is nowhere to be found. More seems to have written Utopia with the idea of individual freedom in mind; however, there are some problems with
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now