本文主要略论的是政治哲学的鲜明特点的范文。文章从古希腊的历史、公民、来源政权等进一步分心总结出：现代政治哲学是与众不同的民事其分离从权力神圣的权威，人性的恶劣，朽木不可雕，其假设，英语论文题目，它强调公民的世俗利益基础上的政治合法性
人的意愿。
In ancient Greek, from Socrates to Aristotle, philosophers are likely to assume that citizens are virtuous or potentially virtuous, more or less and they tend to build a city-state in order to cultivate virtuous individuals. However, the most distinctive feature of political realism since Machiavelli is the assumption that human are innately bad, self-interested, and uneducable. Therefore, politics is to frame effective means to build a stable society. In addition, modern political philosophers casted doubts on the existence of God and religions were considered to be effective means to manipulate citizens.
These two premises produced other features of modern political philosophy. For instance, the standard to evaluate a religion is based on its effectiveness to make people loyal to the earthly government. In another words, philosophers did not consider certain religion to be innately bad or good. Rather, the value of religions depends on how governor make use of them. For instance, according to Machiavelli, the best religion is the one in ancient Rome. Since, during that period, religion was manipulated to make people comply with the new law. In addition, religion is much more useful in maintaining a constitution than law or a virtuous ruler are. That is because “the citizens feared to break an oath much more than the laws, like those who esteemed the power of God more than man.” (Machiavelli, 1517, p.34) and that “virtue fails with the life of that one (the virtuous ruler); and it rarely happens that it is restored by succession.” (Machiavelli, 1517 p.35) By contrast, his contemporary religion was evil. In Italy, Rulers were not introducing and conducting religion in a proper way. “Those people who are closest to the Roman church, the head of our religion, have less religion.” (Machiavelli, 1517, p.37) Therefore, Christianity was too weak to unite the Italy but was strong enough to stop earthly rulers to reunite it, making Italy effeminate and vulnerable to attack and division. Similarly, basing on the idea that religion is only effective mean to manipulate people, Hobbes claimed that religion’s authority should subject to the civil authority. As a result, religion authorities who claimed their power over civil authorities would be bad ones. For instance, the Church of Rome who claimed that “that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him”(Hobbes, 1651, p.75) was considered by Hobbes as “to the advantage of the Pope” (Hobbes, 1651, p.75). By contrast, the religion who “is a part of human politics; and teacheth part of the duty which earthly kings require of their subjects”(Hobbes, 1651, p.69) is considered to be good.
Similar with Aristotle’s goal to preserve common interests of city-states, by assuming that people are self-interested, Machiavelli’s main effort is to maintain the stability and prosperity among in Italy, rather than to serve for the heaven in the medieval theories. Secondly, Machiavelli shared with Aristotle’s emphasis on the importance of every individual’s happiness in worldly life. However, Machiavelli didn’t accept Aristotle categorically. Firstly, he deviated from Aristotle by claiming that virtues are what appear to be praised rather than what they are. For Machiavelli, to maintain the reputation of a virtue is important. “Generosity exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it, injures you” (Bailey et.al., 2017, p.362). Secondly, ideal rulers of a country or city-state are those who are hypocritical, rather than those who always rule with virtue. Since “anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything, must be ruined among so many who are not good."( Machiavelli, 1513, p.53)
Basing on the earthly understanding of the goal of government, what is perhaps satirical in Hobbes’ defence of the political power is that on the one hand he claimed that the goal to establish the government is for self-preservation, on the other hand, he argues for the absolute power of the established government. As a result, the government has the absolute right to execute individual when one disobey the law, since individual has transferred all of his or her natural rights the public power. In order to argue for the importance to maintain a reputation of generosity, rather than to act generously, Machiavelli described the following fact. Rulers spending money too generously on their subjects were hated by their subjects in the end, since they had burdened their subjects and only a small group of people benefited from their generosity (Machiavelli, 1513, p.34).
Modern liberalism is distinctive in its emphasis on worldly explanations of God and on liberty of conscience. Hobbes attributed the “seeds” of religion to “opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics” (Hobbes, 1651, p.69). Thus, the concept of God derives from human nature or psychological needs, rather than any metaphysical foundations in medieval doctrines. In addition, Hobbes redefined the mean to lead people to have faith in Christianity and limited the power of the Christ’s minster to making men believe and have faith in Christ. According to Hobbes, the only mean to lead people to faith is argument and persuasion, rather than coercion and enforcement (Hobbes, 1651, p.308). As a result, the principle of Toleration, which is the forerunner of liberty of conscience is derived. Similarly, Locke claims that the goal of government is to protect citizens’ private property. “So the great and chief purpose of men’s uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property”. (Locke, 1689, p.40) Therefore, the legitimacy of “Christian government” enforcing people to believe in Christianity is uprooted. In addition, in his First Treatise of Government, John Locke refuted the doctrine of the “divine right of kings”. Therefore, in refuting the legitimacy of a kingship with absolute power, he denied the Christianity as the source of political power.
In the premodern account of nature, the concept nature was used to justify the subordination of one class to another or the subordination of one gender to another. For instance, according to Aristotle, slavery is in accordance with nature and women are naturally inferior to men. In the medieval period, natural laws were always embedded with divine sources. However, Locke and Hobbes theories served to justify worldly happiness and the equality between individuals. Therefore, the premodern account of nature is inconsistent with their theory. For instance, Locke’s state of nature is “a state of equality”. The reason is, “it is simply obvious that creatures of the same species and status, all born to all the same advantages of nature and to the use of the same abilities” (Locke, 1689, p.3). In addition, Locke natural law derives from human reason, rather than the divine existence and the government established by contract is to regulate worldly affairs between individual. Similarly, for Hobbes, “Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind”. In addition, in his “state of nature”(Hobbes, 1631, p.76), every one has the freedom to handle his body and to punish everyone who offend him or her. Thus, Hobbes’ and Locke’s concepts of nature are always related with equality, freedom, and mortal human being’s rationality. Therefore, it is reasonable to know why they reject the premodern account of nature.
To sum up, modern political philosophy is distinctive in its separation of civil authority from divine authority, its assumption of human nature as bad and uneducable, its emphasis on the worldly interests of citizens and basing political legitimacy on people’s willingness.
References
Bailey, A., Brennan, S., Kymlicka, W., Levy, J., Sager, A. & Wolf, C. (2017). Broadview anthology of social and political thought: Volume 1: From Plato to Nietzsche. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, 1689
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513, first published in 1532,
Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1517 Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov, The University of Chicago Press
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651, printed for Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard.
|
