Social Philosophy

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Social Philosophy

• Law
• And
• Politics

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Levels of Government

• Municipal
• County
• State
• Federal

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Responsibilities of the Government

• National Defense
• Highways
• Public Transit
• Criminal Law
• Education
• Welfare

• Fire Protection Services
• Health Services
• Marriage and divorce
• Zoning land

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Consider

• Is it the governings job to act as a parent and
  care for the people?
• At what cost?
• Thoreau said, I hold with the proposition that
  he who governs best governs least.
• So how much government do we need?

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Basis

• What is more important?
• Freedom or
• Control
• Depends if you think humans are basically good
  (freedom) or
• basically evil (control)
• How much power do individuals seek?

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Responses

• Liberal people are good and can be left to
  their own devices founded on liberty generally,
  Democrats founded by Thomas Jefferson
• Conservative people are bad and must be
  controlled power must be conserved generally,
  Republicans founded by Abraham Lincoln

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Social Distinction

• What is the distinction between
• Law ?
• Politics?
• Law the art or science of social
• order (control)
• Politics the art or science of social
  organization (parts fit w/i whole)

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1st - Law

• The principal idea behind law is order to keep
  people from disturbing each other
• The amount of law needed is determined by
  question, Is human nature good or evil??
• Law must be distinction from rule
• Law order/rules applied to everyone
• Rule the individual decisions of a person or
  group

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Courts

• Two Types
• Civil can sue people wrong each other
• Criminal can go to jail police, grand jury,
  and DA involve

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Perfect World - Control Group

• King Arthur and Camelot
• LAW over RULE
• Arthurs wife and best friend commit adultery
• King Arthur can pardon them, but he says everyone
  subject to the law
• Lead to search for the holy grail

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Law Justice

• Justice demands all citizen be treated equally
• Justice no rule instead, law
• Pope John Paul II said,
• If you want peace, seek justice.

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Law Justice

• John Rawls of Harvard (1921-2002) was arguably
  the most important political philosopher of the
  20th century. He said that we should decide on
  laws at on a social level as if we where behind a
  veil of ignorance
• as if we did not know our station in life our
  social status (types of people)

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• Cultures

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Types of People

• Determined not by race, we share 97 of our DNA
  with apes
• There are only three races
• I. Congoid Subspecies of sub-Saharan Africa
• II. Caucasoid or Europid Subspecies
• III. Mongoloid Subspecies

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Types of People

• Determined by culture
• The totality of socially transmitted behavior
  patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all
  other products of human work and thought.
• These patterns, traits, and products considered
  as the expression of a particular period, class,
  community, or population Edwardian culture
  Japanese culture the culture of poverty.
• These patterns, traits, and products considered
  with respect to a particular category, such as a
  field, subject, or mode of expression religious
  culture in the Middle Ages musical culture oral
  culture.
• The predominating attitudes and behavior that
  characterize the functioning of a group or
  organization.
• Two types
• Inherited, and
• Chosen

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From Law to Politics

• Law axiomatic system applied equally to all
  people to control interactions
• Politics something made up of elements with
  varied functions that contribute to the whole and
  to collective functions an organism the body
  politics, people taken as a whole
• The greatest political philosophy was Plato

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Perfect World - Control Group

• Is there a model of a perfect world in the
  popular media?
• 1st what are the characteristics of a perfect
  world?
• Star Trek is a perfect world
• Three types of energy/mass conversions we can
  one
• They have unlimited energy (anti-matter) and can
  produce matter from energy

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Platos The Republic Twelve Book opus on the
nature of everything

• Plato considers and rejects Forms of Government
• absolutism total control
• plutocracy rule by rich
• commonwealth select leader from congress
• communism all people own
• confederation states control
• federal central control
• monarchy rule by family

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• oligarchy - Government by a few, especially by
  a small faction of persons or families
• Republic - representative government
• theocracy - rule by priests
• democracy rule by people
• Aristocracy - rule by the best
• Hegemony rule by a select group

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In The Republic

• Plato argues that only one form of government
  will work
• Aristocracy -
• rule by the ELITE, or best of mankind
• Distinction
• Politician
• Statesman

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Platos ELITE The Aristocracy

• Tripartite State
• USED by Freud, TA, and many others

RULERS
ARMY
MASSES
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2000 years later a Modern Explanation -Politics
as a Evolutionary Reaction

• Things evolve - change - daily, weekly, yearly,
  over the centuries.
• The mechanisms involved include
• mutation (A change in a DNA sequence, usually
  occurring because of errors in replication or
  repair. )
• migration (movement)
• genetic drift (Random changes in the gene
  frequencies of a population from generation to
  generation.)
• natural selection (Differential survival or
  reproduction of different genotypes in a
  population leading to changes in the gene
  frequencies of a population.)

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Politics as a Evolutionary Reaction

• Politics in the 20th century differentiated into
  two very different reactions to 19th century
  evolutionary theory stemming from two questions
• Is HUMAN NATURE basically GOOD or EVIL?
• What is more fundamental cooperation or
  competition?

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The Results

• Competition
• The
• Republic/
• Capitalist
• model
• vs.

• Cooperation
• The
• Socialist/
• Communist
• Model
• (This model failed in the USSR, but may
  intimately succeed in China)

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• Socialist/
• Communist
• Model based on cooperation

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Marx

• Created Communism because of the excesses of the
  Industrial Revolution
• Humanist -- Believed man basically good
• Sought an idealistic world were all men equal
• Ideas came from the DIALECTIC

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Politics -- Marxs History of Organization

• 1. Communalism primitive man, no possessions
• 2. Slavery one man rule over many
• 3. Feudalism One owns, freemen work for
• 4. Capitalism many own
• 5. Communism all own no possessions

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Hegals Idealistic Dialectic

• Good
• On
• Male
• Light
• Hot

• Bad
• Off
• Female
• Dark
• Cold
• God is the Absolute in the middle that All is
  trying to get back to

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Marxs Class Struggle

• Marx applied Hegals idealistic dialectic to
  mankinds history and said that mankind is
  involved primarily in a class struggle between
  the haves and the have-nots

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• The
• Republic/
• Capitalist
• Model
• based on competition

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) a major influence

• Believed man to be evil
• Thus man needed much control or each person would
  destroy the other and society would devolve
• In many ways, the
• Father of Conservatism

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John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) Liberal

• In the time when kings had absolute rule and
  divine power, Locke, a humanist, conceived of
  liberty and equality for all people.

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John Locke Liberal Ideas

• 1. Rights what is????
• Not Entitlement something suppose to get
• Freedoms from and Freedom for
• (See Bill of Rights)
• 2. Social Contract an unwritten agreement
  between members of a society in which we agree to
  give up some rights in order to gain others
• (David Hume Convention contract arise from
  use.)
• 3. Tacit Consent agreement in a government by
  participation

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So A Modern Dialectic
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Ultimately, what is there?

• Rational Self-Interest
• Think for yourself
• Know that it is in your, and everyone elses,
  best interest if we work together