Interrelationship of Fundamental Values

1
Inter-relationship of Fundamental Values

• The quest for the Good Society

2
Great Ideas in 2002

• Plant closings
• Layoffs
• Minority hiring policies
• Inner city investment
• Paternity leave
• Executive bonus systems
• Environmentalism

• Rights
• Liberty
• Equality
• Leadership
• Efficiency
• Community
• Democracy

3
Whose values?

• The great conversation across the centuries.
• -Mortimer Adler

4
Conflict between civilizations will be the
latest phase in the evolution of conflict in the
modern world. the conflicts of the Western
world were largely among princesemperors,
absolute monarchs, and constitutional monarchs
attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their
armies, their mercantilist economic strength and
most important, the territory they ruled.
5
In the politics of civilizations, the peoples
and governments of non-Western civilizations no
longer remain the objects of history as targets
of Western colonialism but join the West as
movers and shapers of history.Samuel P.
Huntington (1993)
6
The Good Society

• Defined in terms of justice
• Good Society is a Just Society because the
  essential rights of every citizen are secured
• But
• What, if anything, is every citizen entitled to
  receive from society?

7
Purpose of governmentThe task of every
legitimate government is to secure the good
society for its citizens.
8
In the Good or Just Society

• Aristotle permits some members to live the good
  life
• Hobbes provides sufficient order to allow
  material progress
• Locke guarantees life, liberty and property
• Rousseau preserves as much as possible the
  conditions of liberty and equality that humankind
  enjoyed in the state of nature
• Adam Smith nearly absolute economic freedom
• Marx nearly absolute economic equality
• Max Weber governed by law, so that no citizen
  is treated arbitrarily
• Martin Luther King guarantees the natural
  rights of all its members, without regard to
  their race, sex, religion, or class

9
Questions

• Why do such brilliant philosophers disagree?
• With such diverse perspectives, how can
  government be said to provide the good society at
  all?
• How are contemporary philosophers addressing the
  Big Question, if at all?
• In a world increasingly defined by a clash of
  civilizations, how can we hope to agree on the
  value dimensions that underlie the Big Question?
  What prevails?

10

• Are you a Liberal?
• liberal?
• Classical liberal?
• conservative?
• Neo-conservative?
• Conservative?
• Eco-feminist?
• Deep ecologist?

11
DREAMS
12
Dreams

• Values
• Ideals
• Objectives
• Desires

13
The U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776)

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
  men are created equal, that they are endowed by
  their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
  that among these are Life, Liberty and the
  pursuit of Happiness.

14
Politics, by Aristotle

• For that some should rule and others be ruled is
  a thing not only necessary, but expedient from
  the hour of their birth, some are marked out for
  subjection, others for rule.
• Again the male is by nature superior, and the
  female inferior and the one rules, and the other
  is ruled this principle, of necessity, extends
  to all mankind.
• It is clear, then, that some men are by nature
  free, and others slaves, and that for these
  latter slavery is both expedient and right.

15
Natural Law, by Cicero

• True law is right reason in agreement with
  nature it is of universal application,
  unchanging and everlasting
• And there will not be different laws at Rome or
  Athens, or different laws now and in the future,
  but one eternal and unchangeable law will be
  valid for all nations and all times, and there
  will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over
  us all, for he is the author of this law, its
  promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is
  disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying
  his human nature, and by reason of this very fact
  he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he
  escapes wha tis commonly considered punishment.
  from The Republic III, XXII

16
Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes

• To this war of every man against every man
  nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and
  wrong, justice and injustice, have there no
  place. Where there is no common power, there is
  no law
• The passions that incline men to peace are
  fear of death desire of such things as are
  necessary to commodious living and a hope by
  their industry to obtain them.
• Chapter XIII

17

• The right of nature, which writers commonly call
  jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use
  his own power as he will himself for the
  preservation of his own nature that is to say,
  of his own life
• By liberty is understoodthe absence of external
  impediments
• A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or
  general rule, found out by reason, by which man
  is forbidden to do that which is destructive of
  his life
• right consists in liberty to do, or to forebear
  whereas law determinith and bindith to one of
  them so that law and right differ
• as much as obligation and liberty

18
The mutual transferring of right is that which
men call contract
19
that great Leviathan

• I authorize and give up my right to governing
  myself to this man, or to this assembly of man,
  on this condition that thou give up thy right to
  him, and authorize all his actions in like
  manner. This done, the multitude so united in
  one person is called a Commonwealth in Latin,
  Civitas.

20

• one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by
  mutual covenants one with another, have made
  themselves every one the author, to the end he
  may use the strength and means of them all as he
  shall think expedient for their peace and common
  defence.
• And he that carryeth this position is called
  sovereign, and said to have sovereign power and
  every one besides, his subject.

21
The Science of Right, by Immanuel Kant

• Natural right rests upon pure rational principles
  a priori
• Positive or statutory right is what proceeds from
  the will of a legislator
• Innate right is that right which belongs to every
  one by nature, independent of all juridical acts
  of experience.
• Acquired right is that right which is founded
  upon such juridical acts.

22
There is only one Innate Right, the Birthright of
Freedom.

• Freedom is independence of the compulsory will of
  another.

23
Kant contd

• Society
• Social state
• Natural right
• Private right

• Civil society
• Civil state
• Civil rights
• Public rights

In a state of nature, there may be a society, but
not a civil society.
24
conversations over timeAntigoneconflict
between individual conscience laws of the
state5th C tradedy _at_ ruler made bad decision
couldnt admit mistake
25
Greeks freedom of children on a well-run
school-ground
26
Hobbes really free in state of nature
voluntarily enters social contract to live under
rule of law-liberty for guaranteed security
under all-powerful monarch- a bitter bargain
27
Lockefree in benign state of natureconsent
of the governedcivil peace, not by a despotic
Hobbesian sovereignRather, laws freely agreed
to by those laws subjectsWhere law ends,
tyranny beingsJefferson Declaration of
Independence
28
Freedoma liberty to follow my own will in all
things where the law prescribes
notLockeUnjust laws?
29
RousseauHow can people retain their Natural
Right to freedom if they have contracted to live
under the laws of the state?No idiot would
voluntarily sell himself into slavery.When
obey a law thats in your own self-interest,
havent given up fdm., everyone has done so too.
30
each man, in giving himself to all, gives
himself to nobodyissue is not freedom from
government, but freedom under government
31
Give up freedom
so that
we can obey ourselves
32
Substituting justice for instinct in his conduct.

• Although, in this state, he deprives himself of
  some advantages which he got from nature, he
  gains in return others so great, his faculties
  are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so
  extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole
  soul so uplifted . Instead of a stupid and
  unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent
  being and a man.

33
Man is born free and everywhere he is in
chains.
34
Even if each man could alienate himself, he
could not alienate his children they are born
men and free their liberty belongs to them, and
no one but they has the right to dispose of it.
35
John Stuart Mill

• Approved Locke, Rousseaus efforts to ensure
  liberty of many from the despotism of kings
  oligarchies
• However, concerned about
• rights of minorities
• Context height of Victorian social repression
  that occurred with the flowering of laissez faire
  economics in England
• Mill concerned about protection of individuality

36
Freedom of
The only freedom which deserves the name is that
of pursuing our own good in our own way, so
long as we do not attempt to deprive others of
theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

• Thought
• Expression
• Tastes
• Conscience
• Pursuits
• Association

37
Equality

• Idea of INEQUALITY is ancient
• Aristotles views natural hierarchy
• Men by nature superior to women
• Freemen by nature superior to slaves
• Some born to rule, others to obey
• 2000 years, this idea ruled/rules
• Caste, gender, ethnicity, class

38
Plato

• No friend of liberty and equality, in the way
  that a modern democrat uses the terms
• Democracy creates a city full of freedom and
  frankness, in which may do say what he likes
  the individual is clearly able to order for
  himself his own life as he pleases
• Not a good thing
• Liberty dispenses a sort of equality to equals
  and unequals alike
• Democracy was the second worst form of
  government, one rung above tyranny

39
Ideal

• Well-ordered state
• A government characterized by rule of the few,
  but not aristocracy
• By men of gold knowledge wisdom talent
  ability
• A meritocracy The Guardians
• Science of government
• Rule for good of society greatest happiness of
  the whole
• Hierarchy anti-egalitarian anti-democratic

40

• Plato did maintain that the sexes were equal
• In The Republic if the difference consists only
  in women bearing and begetting children, this
  does not amount to proof that a woman differs
  from a man in respect to the sort of education
  she should receive.
• the gifts of nature alike are diffused in both

41
Modern egalitarianism

• 1700s
• Observed differences nurture
• How people treated rather than Aristotles
  ideas of nature
• Aristotelians prevailed
• Until 20th C, only J.S. Mill equality of women
• Virginia Wolf, a half century later...

42
Who is a full equal member of the human race?

• Complete male suffrage in Britain in 1863
• Black-Am enfranchised in U.S. in 1870
• Female suffrage in Britain in 1914
• In U.S., six years later

43
Seneca Falls Convention

• 1848
• Declaration of Sentiments

44
Are we more ardently attached to equality than to
freedom, as de Tocqueville stated?

• Men cling to equality not only because it is
  dear to them they also adhere to it because they
  think it will last forever.
• Charms of equality instantly felt within reach
  of all nothing is required but to live
• They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism
  but they will not endure aristocracy.
• advantages which freedom brings are only shown
  by the lapse of time
• political liberty is more easily lost to
  neglect to hold it fast is to allow it to
  escape.

45
Efficiency

• Platos Republic necessity of putting the
  organization ahead of interests of individual
• Leviathan its function is to foster safety for
  economic progress. In the state of nature
• there is no place for industry, because the
  fruit thereof is uncertain and consequently no
  culture of the earth no navigationno knowledge
  on the face of the earth no account of time no
  arts no letters

46
J. S. Mill

• Greatest of liberals
• So believed in the value of an intellectual
  aristocracy that he advocated proportional voting
  weighted by the amount of schooling each
  individual had received. James OToole
• de Tocqueville An aristocracy is infinitely
  more skilful in the science of legislation than
  democracy can ever be.
• Fear of mobocracy

47

• The will of the people, moreover, practically
  means the will of the most numerous or the most
  active part of the peoplethe majority, or those
  who succeed in making themselves accepted as the
  majority the people, consequently, may desire to
  oppress a part of their umber, and precautions
  are as much needed against this as against any
  other abuse of power. the tyranny of the
  majority is now generally included among the
  evils against which society requires to be on its
  guard. J.S. Mill

48

• there needs protection also against the tyranny
  of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against
  the tendency of society to impose, by other means
  than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices
  as rules of conduct on those who dissent from
  them.
• The practical question how to make the fitting
  adjustment between individual independence and
  social control
• Mill

49
Confucius

• Feared disorder too
• Like Hobbes, led to advocate a meritocratic
  oligarchy bc of this fear
• Across history cultures
• The only realist alternative to anarchy on the
  one hand, and to tyranny on the other, is
  benevolent despotism.
• RELATIVELY FEW PHILS-faith in Demo.

50
Individualism in Democratic Countries

• Individualism is of democratic origin
• Not selfishness
• Democracy throws him back forever upon himself
  alone and threatens in the end to confine him
  entirely within the solitude of his own heart
• owe nothing to any man, and they expect
  nothing from any manapt to imagine that their
  whole destiny is in their own hands.
• de Tocqueville, On Democracy in America

51

• In democratic countries, the science of
  association is the mother of the science
• If men are to remain civilized, or to become
  more so, the art of associating together must
  grow and improve in the same ratio in which the
  equality of conditions is increased.

52
de Tocqueville

• The art advances, the artisan recedes
• Workman becomes more weak, more narrow-minded,
  and more dependent
• Workman concentrates his faculties more and more
  upon the study of a single detail, the master
  surveys an extensive whole
• Emergence of a manufacturing aristocracy that
  impoverishes and debases the men who serve it
  and then abandons them to be supported by the
  charity of the public.
• the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing
  up under our eyes is one of the harshest which
  ever existed in the world

53
Donella Meadows

• The Limits of Growth (1972)
• Grow or die, goes the old economic maxim. But
  in 1972 a team of systems scientists and computer
  modelers challenged conventional wisdom with a
  ground-breaking study that warned that there were
  limitsespecially environmental limitsto how
  big human civilization and its appetite for
  resources could get. Beyond a certain point,
  they said, in effect, the maxim could very well be

grow and die .
54
Can you think of a group in power that
voluntarily gives up some power for the sake of
equality?