POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1
Modern Views
Utalitarianism - mostly rejected now; calculus, greatest happiness principle
- SINGER: Effective Altruism (conscious choice of altruism realocation)
Libertarianism & Liberal Egalitarianism - anti-utilitarianism, since minorities can’t be fully protected (gladiator fight example)
- NOZICK: Libertarianism (rights can be violated); pro-minimal state, only taxpayers are protected; taxation violates free agreements between citizens via state intervention
- RAWLS: Liberal Egalitarianism; minorities must be protected, always improve minorities, only improve the advantaged if it benefits the rest; system-legitimacy is minority dependent
- DWORKIN: Liberal/Luck Egalitarianism; anti-Rawls, considers how deserving plays into advantages, bad luck as a result of conscious choice is not so bad; Brute Luck: random, unconscious, undeserving chance; Option luck: conscious, deserved chance outcome.
[Rawls wants all disadvantaged people to be helped, Dowrkin only wants the disadvantaged who ended up in their position out of brute luck to be helped]
- VAN PARIJS: people with undeserved good luck should, via UBI, benefit everyone else
- NUSSBAUM & SEN: equal capabilities for all, no longer about resources, but capacities, resource needs are relative, 10 capabilities that should be maximized
Republicanism - completely anti-domination, remove potentiality of domination via equalizing relations; Libs free private life, Reps free public life; collective self-governance
- Pettit: we must be able to look everyone else in the eyes without fear
Communitarianism - forming shared conception of good life, suspencion of religious belief, ig
3 Conceptions of Liberty:
1. Libs: negative liberty [freedom from], i.e. negation of obstacles
[ISAIAH BERLIN: best answer to pluralism]
2. Reps: non-domination
3. Comms: positive liberty [freedom to], positivized capacities
[CHARLES TAYLOR: not all negations, like stop signs, imperil freedom; internal negations like anxiety are more restrictive]
- Liberal Neutrality - the state should be neutral
- KYMLICKA: the state cannot be neutral about everything (like national languages, etc.)
Marxism - end exploitation [surplus-value] & alienation [restrained productive forces]
- Cohen: modern Marxism
Domestic Democracy
- Instrumental: democracy as a tool for smt else [Amartya Sen, John Elster]
- Intrinsic: democracy as good in itself [Gould: autonomy; Habermans & Rawls: public justification, common reason]
All of this: about the nation state (Rawls, Locke, Hobbs - all write about singular nation states)
- Postnational Constellation
- Supra-National - EU, UN
- Sub-State - many cultures, ethnicities
What is justice like beyond the nation? EU is a laboratory for this. Who holds real power?