ፍትህ ለሁሉም / Justice for All
In the introduction to his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume (1711–1776) describes the intellectual scene before him as a “noise and clamor” in which every trivial question was debated, but nothing important was ever settled. Hence arose “a common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds, even among those, who profess themselves, scholars.” Thinkers such …
John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to …
Locke proposed a radical conception of political philosophy deduced from the principle of self-ownership and the corollary right to own property, which in turn is based on his famous claim that a man earns ownership over a resource when he mixes his labor with it. Government, he argued, should be limited to securing the life …
Spinoza’s political philosophy proceeds from the idea, also found in Hobbes, that political ends, or goals, should be derived from understanding human nature such as it is, and not as it should or could be. This fundamental starting point can be contrasted with a utopian tradition of political philosophy emblematic, for example, in Plato’s Republic and the …
At least in anglophone countries, Spinoza’s reputation as a political thinker is eclipsed by his reputation as a rationalist metaphysician. Nevertheless, Spinoza was a penetrating political theorist whose writings have enduring significance. In his two political treatises, Spinoza advances a number of forceful and original arguments in defense of democratic governance, freedom of thought and …
This is Hobbes’s picture of human nature. We are needy and vulnerable. We have easily led astray in our attempts to know the world around us. Our capacity to reason is as fragile as our capacity to know; it relies upon language and is prone to error and undue influence. When we act, we may …
Although Hobbes offered some mild pragmatic grounds for preferring monarchy to other forms of government, his main concern was to argue that effective government—whatever its form—must have absolute authority. Its powers must be neither divided nor limited. The powers of legislation, adjudication, enforcement, taxation, war-making (and the less familiar right of control of normative doctrine) …
Before St. Thomas Aquinas the church fathers and other medieval thinkers held that the state was ordained by God and the government was the instrument devised by God to punish the evildoers. This view was the product of the unfamiliarity with Aristotelian thought. Since Thomas was the spokesman of Aristotelianism he revived Aristotle’s ideas on …
The political philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), along with the broader philosophical teaching of which it is part, stands at the crossroads between the Christian gospel and the Aristotelian political doctrine that was, in Aquinas’ time, newly discovered in the Western world. In fact, Aquinas’ whole developed system is often understood to be simply a modification of Aristotelian philosophy …
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) is best known to posterity as a prominent statesman and orator in the tumultuous period of the late Roman republic. As well as being a leading political actor of his time, he also wrote voluminously. Among his writings, around a dozen philosophical works have come down to us. Philosophy was …