exam 2 Flashcards
(28 cards)
hobbes def commonwealth
According to Hobbes, a commonwealth is created when people confer all their power and strength upon one man or an assembly of men, so that their wills may be reduced to one will
hobbes def sovereign
The sovereign is the person or assembly of men upon whom the power of the commonwealth has been conferred. Every person besides the sovereign is a subject
hobbes def war
The time when men live without a common power to keep them all in
awe they are in a condition which is called War; and such a war as is of every man, against every man. Hobbes says that some nations act like gladiators, with weapons pointing at one another and spies observing their neighbours, which is a posture of war
hobbes def power
The “present means, to obtain some future apparent Good” Furthermore, the greatest power is that which is “compounded of the Powers of most men, united by consent, in one person”
Hobbes’s reasons for attributing to all human beings “a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death”
“He cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more”
State of nature equal to power which leads to necessity of forming civil society
Hobbes’s reasons for thinking that right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no application in war
Hobbes argues that in a state of war, nothing is unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place because where there is no common power, there is no law, and where there is no law, there is no injustice. Force and fraud are the cardinal virtues in war, and justice and injustice are not faculties of the body or mind.
The purpose of the commonwealth according to Hobbes
The final cause, end, or design of people is to introduce a restraint upon themselves - freedom / peace
The “only way” to create a commonwealth, according to Hobbes
The “only way” to establish a common power is to confer all power and strength onto one man, or an assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by a plurality of voices unto one will
The two modes by which sovereign power is acquired, according to Hobbes, and how they differ
Sovereign power is attained in two ways: by natural force (acquisition) or when men agree among themselves to submit to some man or assembly of men voluntarily (inquisition). A commonwealth by acquisition differs from one by institution in that men who choose their sovereign do it for fear of one another, and not of the sovereign, but in acquisition, they subject themselves to the sovereign they are afraid of.
The three reasons Douglass brings forward in “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in support of his claim that “nobody doubts” the humanity of slaves
Slaveholders acknowledge slaves are men when they enact laws for their government.
They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.
Slaves are moral, intellectual, and responsible beings - It is admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave
to read or write.
Douglass’s claims (especially in Chaps. I-III) about the slave system’s enmity towards family among the enslaved
The practice of separating children from their mothers is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which is to reduce man to a level with the brute
Separating partners (relationships)
Not knowing father - is his master his father
Douglass’s reasons for claiming that “the slaveholder, as well as the slave, is the victim of the slave system”
the institution fundamentally corrupts their moral character, warping their sense of humanity and preventing them from developing a healthy conscience due to the power dynamics and inherent violence of enslaving another person; essentially, he believed that the system itself dehumanizes both the slave and the master, making them both victims in different ways. Slaveholder has rules he has to obey, norms
Douglass’s account of “the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture” he heard
“sketched out the direct pathway from slavery to freedom”.
“knowledge unfits a child to be a slave”.
exposition by his master, Hugh Auld, to his wife Sophia
he understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom
When Douglass witnessed his master explaining the danger of slaves learning to read–that it led to freedom–he called it “the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture”
Intellectual emancipation, physical emancipation, legal emancipation, universal emancipation
Douglass’s arguments justifying the right of slaves to steal
robbed of moral responsibility - He is not seen as a human being and therefore cannot be seen as responsible for stealing food to survive, doesn’t have the moral capacity, responsibility
Douglass’s experience with Covey
Douglass had converted to Christianity and tried to start a Sunday school for other slaves but was thwarted. Because he had a rebellious streak, Auld sent him to a “slave breaker” named Edward Covey to crush his spirit with the lash. Within a week, Covey had whipped Douglass savagely.
Douglass’s experience with Covey :
Douglass was whipped at least once a week
Covey made Douglass work long hours
Covey spied on Douglass to ensure he was working
Covey bought a female slave and hired a man to have sex with her for a year
Douglass collapsed from heat exhaustion and Covey beat him
Douglass fought with Covey in a two-hour battle
Douglass’s fight with Covey :
Douglass seized Covey by the throat and held him
Covey was taken aback and trembled
Covey called for help from Hughes, who attempted to tie Douglass’s hand
Douglass kicked Hughes under the ribs
Douglass’s transformation:
Douglass’s fight with Covey renewed his self-confidence and his desire to be free. He emerged from the fight a confident, freedom-seeking man
The “two great parties” into which Tocqueville sees France being divided
Middle class and working class, those who own property and those who do not, land and propertyless
The three traits that Tocqueville claims to find in every form of socialism
An appeal to the material passions of man.
An attack, either direct or indirect, on the principle of private property.
A profound opposition to personal liberty and scorn for the individual reason, a completely contempt for the individual.
Tocqueville’s reasons for claiming that democracy and socialism are “not only different but opposing philosophies”
Democracy aims at equality in liberty, while socialism desires equality in constraint and servitude. Socialism makes each man an agent, an instrument, and a number, while democracy does not.
Gaus’s reasons for disagreeing with the feminist claim that “one cannot be a full juridical person in a society in which many others hold negative or dismissive conceptions of you”
A free society tolerates ways of living considered repulsive, foolish, or perverse by some and cannot presuppose a virtue/character account of human action. The Great Society only becomes possible when individuals are understood to be morally autonomous in the sense that they can put aside their fantasies, perversities or foolish notions and respect the legal personality of others, and are properly held morally accountable if they fail to do so. If a neighbour is morally autonomous, her dangerous and repulsive thoughts, library, and VCR collection are not a concern, because one can still expect her to act publicly in accordance with civil personality.
What happened between Smith and Marx to reverse the egalitarian assessment of market society, according to Anderson
According to Anderson, the Industrial Revolution happened between the time of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Smith wrote at the threshold of the Industrial Revolution before its implications for relations of production could be fully grasped, while Marx wrote in its midst when workers were bearing its most frightful costs and enjoying few of its benefits1. The Industrial Revolution shattered the model of how a free society of equals might be built through market society
Why, according to Anderson, the ideal of free labour was “doomed” to self-destruct
According to Anderson, the ideal of free labour self-destructed in three ways:
The ideal of universal self-employment never incorporated the unpaid domestic labour essential to family life, which was performed overwhelmingly by women.
The Civil War, which ended slavery in the name of independent labour, ironically propelled the very forces that put the universalisation of that ideal further out of reach, even for the class of white men, as it was a powerful driver of industrialisation.
The ideal contained an implicit esteem hierarchy that was ultimately to turn its egalitarian aspirations upside down. If the only fully respectable labour is independent, self-employed labour, then what is one to make of those who remain wage labourers for their whole lives?
Anderson’s definition of private government
Private government is
government that has arbitrary, unaccountable power over those it governs.
Anderson defines private government as the condition where employees are pervasively subject to private government, and employers have always been authoritarian rulers, as an extension of their patriarchal rights to govern their households
Anderson’s four remedies for private government
Make exit a viable option - Give workers the ability to leave their jobs without facing insurmountable obstacles.
Ensure the rule of law - Make sure that the workplace is subject to the law, and that workers have constitutional rights.
Increase worker’s voice - Give workers more say in the workplace through structures like co-determination firms.
Substantive constitutional rights
According to Marx, the “best form of polity”
the best form of polity is that in which the social contradictions are not blurred, not arbitrarily kept down and in which these contradictions reach a stage of open struggle in the course of which they are resolved
