bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social relativism
Authors: Musgrave Alan
Published: September 2018

People in different societies have very different beliefs and systems of belief. To understand such diversity is a prime task of the student of society. The task is especially pressing when alien beliefs seem obviously mistaken, unreasonable or otherwise peculiar. A popular response is social relativism. Perhaps beliefs which seem mistaken, unreasonable or peculiar viewed from our perspective, are by no means mistaken, unreasonable or peculiar viewed from the perspective of the society in which they occur. Different things are not just thought true (reasonable, natural) in different societies – rather, they are true (reasonable, natural) in different societies. Relativism recognizes diversity and deals with it even-handedly.

Relativism has absurd results. Consider the view that what is true in society A need not be true in society B. So if society A believes in witches while society B does not, there are witches in A but not in B. Relativism regarding truth drives us to different ‘worlds’, one with witches in it and another without. This seems absurd: people who live in different societies do not in any literal sense live in different worlds. The challenge is to do justice to social diversity without falling into absurdities such as this.
Systems theory in social science
Authors: Ryan Alan , Bohman James
Published: September 2018

‘Systems theory’ is a label for two very different approaches to social analysis. The first was a post-1945 successor to traditional organicist theories of society that for some twenty years dominated US sociology and political science. It was never very popular outside the USA, and is now of largely historical interest; social scientists who aspire to develop a positive science of social interaction have for the past two decades rested their hopes on the individualist analyses provided by rational choice theory.

Systems theory in the first sense of the term flourished in US sociology and political science from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, and is especially associated with the names of Talcott Parsons in sociology and David Easton and Gabriel Almond in political science. A systems approach to social analysis was commonly, though not universally, associated with some form of functionalism, especially in the work of Parsons, the leading structural-functionalist of his day. It fell into disrepute along with functionalism, a victim of the changed political climate of the 1960s as much as of its purely intellectual weaknesses.

The second form of systems theory is associated especially with the name of Niklas Luhmann, and its leading critic is Jürgen Habermas. The second form is in vigorous life, but not well known in the USA.
Value judgments in social science
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L.
Published: September 2018

Leading theorists in the social sciences have insisted that value judgments should be strictly separated from scientific judgments, which should be value-free. Yet these same thinkers recognize that social scientists are often committed to values in carrying out their work and may be motivated by moral goals of removing or remedying social conditions. From this perspective, scientific conclusions (one sort of fact) and moral commitments (one sort of value) are intertwined in scientific practices, and the question arises whether a social scientist qua scientist makes value judgments or only makes such judgments in a nonscientific capacity. Related questions concern the role played by moral, social, and political values in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the impact of these values on scientific theories and methods.
Schütz, Alfred (1899–1959)
Authors: Collin Finn
Published: September 2018

Alfred Schütz, Austrian-American philosopher and social scientist. Combining ideas from Weber, Bergson and Husserl, Schütz developed a methodology for social science that integrated subjectivist, phenomenological elements with the causal-explanatory aspects of traditional objectivist approaches.
Tönnies, Ferdinand (1855–1936)
Authors: Deflem Mathieu
Published: September 2018

Ferdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist and co-founder of the German Society for Sociology. Known widely for his theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, his sociological oeuvre not only comprised the elaboration of an innovative theoretical approach but also included many applied and empirical studies on a wide variety of social issues. Less influential among present-day social scientists than his contemporaries Weber and Simmel, Tönnies remains an often misunderstood but always respected founding father of sociology.
Toynbee, Arnold Joseph (1889–1975)
Authors: Burke U.P.
Published: September 2018

Arnold Toynbee’s controversial reputation rests on the multi-volume A Study of History that he published between 1934 and 1961. Rejected by some scholars as overly schematic, this wide-ranging work has been welcomed by others for its attempt to make Western historians (indeed, Westerners in general), less parochial and to inject a larger dose of empiricism into the speculative philosophy of history.
Absolutism
Authors: Pagden Anthony
Published: September 2018

The term ‘absolutism’ describes a form of government in which the authority of the ruler is subject to no theoretical or legal constraints. In the language of Roman law – which played a central role in all theories of absolutism – the ruler was legibus solutus, or ‘unfettered legislator’. Absolutism is generally, although not exclusively, used to describe the European monarchies, and in particular those of France, Spain, Russia and Prussia, between the middle of the sixteenth century and the end of the eighteenth. But some form of absolutism existed in nearly every European state until the late eighteenth century. There have also been recognizable forms of absolute rule in both China and Japan.

As a theory absolutism emerged in Europe, and in particular in France, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in response to the long Civil Wars between the Crown and the nobility known as the Wars of Religion. In the late eighteenth century, as the reform movement associated with the Enlightenment began to influence most European rulers, a form of so-called ‘enlightened absolutism’ (or sometimes ‘enlightened despotism’) emerged. In this the absolute authority of the ruler was directed not towards enhancing the power of the state, but was employed instead for advancing the welfare of his subjects.
Alienation
Authors: Wood Allen W.
Published: September 2018

‘Alienation’ is a prominent term in twentieth-century social theory and social criticism, referring to any of various social or psychological evils which are characterized by a harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation which sunders things that properly belong together. People are alienated from one another when there is an interruption in their mutual affection or reciprocal understanding; they are alienated from political processes when they feel separated from them and powerless in relation to them. Reflection on your beliefs or values can also alienate you from them by undermining your attachment to them or your identification with them; they remain your beliefs or values faute de mieux, but are no longer yours in the way they should be. Alienation translates two distinct German terms: Entfremdung (‘estrangement’) and Entäußerung (‘externalization’). Both terms originated in the philosophy of Hegel, specifically in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Their influence, however, has come chiefly from their use by Karl Marx in his manuscripts of 1844 (first published in 1930). Marx’s fundamental concern was with the alienation of wage labourers from their product, the grounds of which he sought in the alienated form of their labouring activity. In both Hegel and Marx, alienation refers fundamentally to a kind of activity in which the essence of the agent is posited as something external or alien, assuming the form of hostile domination over the agent.
Civil society
Authors: Cohen Jean L.
Published: September 2018

In modern social and political philosophy civil society has come to refer to a sphere of human activity and a set of institutions outside state or government. It embraces families, churches, voluntary associations and social movements. The contrast between civil society and state was first drawn by eighteenth-century liberals for the purpose of attacking absolutism. Originally the term civil society (in Aristotelian Greek, politike koinonia) referred to a political community of equal citizens who participate in ruling and being ruled.

In the twentieth century the separation of philosophy from social sciences, and the greatly expanded role of the state in economic and social life, have seemed to deprive the concept of both its intellectual home and its critical force. Yet, approaching the end of the century, the discourse of civil society is now enormously influential. What explains the concept’s revival? Does it have any application in societies that are not constitutional democracies? From a normative point of view, what distinguishes civil society from both the state and the formal economy?
Coercion
Authors: Feinberg Joel
Published: September 2018

Coercion (also called ‘duress’) is one of the basic exculpating excuses both in morality and in some systems of criminal law. Unlike various kinds of direct compulsion that give a victim no choice, a coercee is left with a choice, albeit a very unappealing one. They can do what is demanded, or can refuse, opting instead for the consequences, with which they are threatened. Sometimes courts find that the coercive threat that led the defendant to act as they did was objectively resistible by any person of reasonable fortitude, especially when the defendant’s conduct was gravely harmful to others or to the state.

A proposal is an offer when it projects for the recipient’s consideration a prospect that is welcome in itself, and not harmful or unwelcome beyond what would happen in the normal course of events. Coercive offers, according to some writers, are those that force a specific choice from the victim while actually enhancing their freedom. Some argue, however, that genuine coercion requires the active and deliberate creation of a vulnerability, and not mere opportunistic exploitation of a vulnerability discovered fortuitously.
Critical theory
Authors: Geuss Raymond
Published: September 2018

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research, the School was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. The three most important philosophers belonging to it were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Herbert Marcuse.

Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse feared that modern Western societies were turning into closed, totalitarian systems in which all individual autonomy was eliminated. In their earliest writings from the 1930s they presented this tendency towards totalitarianism as one result of the capitalist mode of production. In later accounts they give more prominence to the role of science and technology in modern society, and to the concomitant, purely ‘instrumental’, conception of reason. This conception of reason denies that there can be any such thing as inherently rational ends or goals for human action and asserts that reason is concerned exclusively with the choice of effective instruments or means for attaining arbitrary ends.

‘Critical theory’ was to be a form of resistance to contemporary society; its basic method was to be that of ‘internal’ or ‘immanent’ criticism. Every society, it was claimed, must be seen as making a tacit claim to substantive (and not merely instrumental) rationality; that is, making the claim that it allows its members to lead a good life. This claim gives critical theory a standard for criticism which is internal to the society being criticized. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. The conception of the good life to which each society makes tacit appeal in legitimizing itself will usually not be fully propositionally explicit, so any critical theory will have to begin by extracting a tacit conception of the good life from the beliefs, cultural artefacts and forms of experience present in the society in question. One of the particular difficulties confronting a critical theory of contemporary society is the disappearance of traditional substantive conceptions of the good life that could serve as a basis for internal criticism, and their replacement with the view that modern society needs no legitimation beyond simple reference to its actual efficient functioning, to its ‘instrumental’ rationality. The ideology of ‘instrumental rationality’ thus itself becomes a major target for critical theory.
Culture
Authors: O’Hear Anthony
Published: September 2018

Culture comprises those aspects of human activity which are socially rather than genetically transmitted. Each social group is characterized by its own culture, which informs the thought and activity of its members in myriad ways, perceptible and imperceptible. The notion of culture, as an explanatory concept, gained prominence at the end of the eighteenth century, as a reaction against the Enlightenment’s belief in the unity of mankind and universal progress. According to J.G. Herder, each culture is different and has its own systems of meaning and value, and cannot be ranked on any universal scale. Followers of Herder, such as Nietzsche and Spengler, stressed the organic nature of culture and praised cultural particularity against what Spengler called civilization, the world city in which cultural distinctions are eroded. It is difficult, however, to see how Herder and his followers avoid an ultimately self-defeating cultural relativism; the task of those who understand the significance of human culture is to make sense of it without sealing cultures off from one another and making interplay between them impossible.

Over and above the anthropological sense of culture, there is also the sense of culture as that through which a people’s highest spiritual and artistic aspirations are articulated. Culture in this sense has been seen by Matthew Arnold and others as a substitute for religion, or as a kind of secular religion. While culture in this sense can certainly inveigh against materialism, it is less clear that it can do this effectively without a basis in religion. Nor is it clear that a rigid distinction between high and low culture is desirable. It is, in fact, only the artistic modernists of the twentieth century who have articulated such a distinction in their work, to the detriment of the high and the low culture of our time.
Green political philosophy
Authors: Ball Terence
Published: September 2018

All the major political philosophies have been born of crisis. Green political philosophy is no exception to this general rule. It has emerged from that interconnected series of crises that is often termed ‘the environmental crisis’. As we enter the third millennium and the twenty-first century it seems quite clear that the level and degree of environmental degradation and destruction cannot be sustained over the longer term without dire consequences for human and other animal species, and the ecosystems on which all depend. A veritable explosion in the human population, the pollution of air and water, the over-fishing of the oceans, the destruction of tropical and temperate rain forests, the extinction of entire species, the depletion of the ozone layer, the build-up of greenhouse gases, global warming, desertification, wind and water erosion of precious topsoil, the disappearance of valuable farmland and wilderness for ‘development’ – these and many other interrelated phenomena provide the backdrop and justification for the ‘greening’ of much of modern political thinking.

The task of outlining and summarizing the state of green political philosophy is made more difficult because there is as yet no agreement among ‘green’ political thinkers. Indeed there is, at present, no definitive ‘green political philosophy’ as such. The environmental or green movement is diverse and disparate, and appears in different shades of green. These range from ‘light green’ conservationists to ‘dark green’ deep ecologists, from ecofeminists to social ecologists, from the militant ecoteurs of Earth First! to the low-keyed gradualists of the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy. These groups differ not only over strategy and tactics, but also over fundamental philosophy.

While there is no single, systematically articulated and agreed-upon green political philosophy, however, there are none the less recurring topics, themes, categories and concepts that are surely central to such a political philosophy. These include the idea that humans are part of nature and members of a larger and more inclusive ‘biotic community’ to which they have obligations or duties. This community includes both human and non-human animals, and the conditions conducive to their survival and flourishing. Such a community consists, moreover, not only of members who are alive but those who are as yet unborn. A green political philosophy values both biological and cultural diversity, and views sustainability as a standard by which to judge the justness of human actions and practices. Exactly how these themes might fit together to form some larger, systematic and coherent whole is still being worked out.
Equality
Authors: Weale Albert
Published: September 2018

Equality has long been a source of political and philosophical controversy. A central question about equality is how one might link empirical or moral claims about the extent to which persons are equal to judgements about the moral acceptability or unacceptability of social inequalities, and in particular how far considerations of equality license social action to bring about greater social equality. A traditional liberal argument holds that approximate equality of human strength makes it prudent for humans to place themselves under a common political authority, thus producing a justification for equality before the law. But any generalization of this argument ignores the cases where strength is unequal and the resulting balance of power unjust. Equality of worth is a principle recognized in many philosophical traditions, but its broad acceptance leaves open many problems of interpretation. In particular, it is not clear how far the principle calls for greater equality of social conditions. Persons may derive a sense of worth from enjoying the fruits of their labour, and this will legitimately block some redistribution; certain inequalities may work to everyone’s advantage; and the impartial concern of the equality principle may be at odds with the sense of ourselves as persons with specific attachments. In this context, some have wanted to soften the interpretation of equality to mean equality of opportunity or merely that inequalities should not be cumulative, although how far these moves are justified is a matter for dispute. By contrast, challenges to the equality principle from considerations of incentives, desert or difference can more easily be met.
Fascism
Authors: Eatwell Roger
Published: September 2018

‘Fascism’ is a term referring both to a political ideology and to a concrete set of political movements and regimes. Its most prominent examples were the Italian and German regimes in the interwar period. Fascist ideology is sometimes portrayed as merely a mantle for political movements in search of power, but in reality it set forth a new vision of society, drawing on both left- and right-wing ideas. Fascists stressed the need for social cohesion and for strong leadership. They were more concerned to revitalize nations by cultural change than to propose institutional changes, but they saw themselves as offering a third way between capitalism and communism. There was no fascist philosophy as such, but fascist ideology drew inspiration from earlier philosophers, most notably Nietzsche and Sorel, and was supported by several contemporary philosophers, including Heidegger, Gentile and Schmitt.
Federalism and confederalism
Authors: Norman Wayne
Published: September 2018

Federative arrangements involve two or more governments ruling over the same territory and population. They have been of interest to political philosophers because they challenge, or at least complicate, some fundamental political concepts like authority, sovereignty, democracy and citizenship. Like citizens in actual federations, philosophers do not treat the terms of federation as a merely technocratic matter: they believe that there are morally legitimate and illegitimate ways of, among other things, dividing powers between governments, determining the representation of the subunits (for example, provinces) within federal institutions and amending the constitution. Philosophers also see in federalism a means of securing a degree of self-determination for ethnic minorities who cannot realistically expect to have their own homogeneous nation-states.
Feminist political philosophy
Authors: Mendus Susan
Published: September 2018

In all its forms, feminism asserts that social and political structures in society discriminate against women. Feminist political philosophy aims to show how traditional political philosophy is implicated in that discrimination and how the resources of political philosophy may nevertheless be employed in the service of women. Sometimes, feminist political philosophy extends the arguments of traditional political philosophy to indicate that women are unjustly treated and to propose ways in which that injustice might be removed. This is clearest in liberal feminism, where it is argued that since women are essentially the same as men in being rational creatures, they are entitled to the same legal and political rights as men: arguments which defend the rights of man also support the rights of women. Similarly, Marxist and socialist feminism extend the insights of Marxism and socialism in an attempt to expose and remove the oppression of women: Marxist emphasis on the exploitation of labour under capital is supplemented by Marxist feminist emphasis on the exploitation of women under patriarchy.

However, there are also forms of feminist political philosophy which are more critical of traditional political philosophy and which question the very distinctions upon which it is premised. Thus, radical feminist philosophers question the scope of the term ‘political’ as it is usually used by political philosophers, and argue that by excluding domestic concerns, traditional political philosophy excludes many of the things which are most important to women. The aim here is not to extend the insights of political philosophy, but rather to highlight the ways in which political philosophy itself shows a distinct gender bias.

Yet more radically, the postmodernists have been critical of philosophy’s emphasis on truth and objectivity, and some feminists have extended their arguments to suggest that the very language of philosophy, and by extension of political philosophy, is ‘man-made’.

Feminist political philosophy is therefore not one thing but many, and feminist political philosophers are deeply divided as to whether traditional political philosophy may be modified so as to include women’s interests, or whether it is itself one of the ways in which women’s politically disadvantaged position is legitimized and perpetuated.
General will
Authors: Nicholson Peter P.
Published: September 2018

The fundamental claim for general will is that the members of a political community, as members, share a public or general interest or good which is for the benefit of them all and which should be put before private interests. When the members put the general good first, they are willing the general will of their community. The claim was given special and influential shape by Rousseau. He produced a comprehensive theory of the legitimacy of the state and of government, revolving around the general will. Some contend this solves the central problem of political philosophy – how the individual can both be obliged to obey the state’s laws, and be free. If laws are made by the general will, aimed at the common good and expressed by all the citizens, the laws must be in accordance with the public interest and therefore in the interest of each, and each is obliged by the law yet free because they are its author. Rousseau’s formulation has been much criticized. But others have found it essentially true and have variously adapted it.
Historicism
Authors: Thornhill Christopher
Published: September 2018

Historicism, defined as ‘the affirmation that life and reality are history alone’ by Benedetto Croce (1938: 65), is understood to mean various traditions of historiographical thinking which developed in the nineteenth century, predominantly in Germany. Historicism is an insistence on the historicity of all knowledge and cognition, and on the radical segregation of human from natural history. It is intended as a critique of the normative, allegedly anti-historical, epistemologies of Enlightenment thought, expressly that of Kant. The most significant theorists and historians commonly associated with historicism are Leopold von Ranke, Wilhelm Dilthey, J.G. Droysen, Friedrich Meinecke, Croce and R.G. Collingwood.

The main antecedents for the development of historicism are to be found in two key bodies of work. J.G. Herder’s Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784) argues against the construction of history as linear progress, stating rather that human history is composed of fundamentally incomparable national cultures or totalities. G.W.F. Hegel’s The Philosophy of History (1826) insists on the historical situatedness of each individual consciousness as a particular moment within the total progression of all history towards a final goal. The shifting fusion of these ideas provides the foundation for both the strengths and the problems of historicism. Historicism follows both Herder, in attempting to do justice to objective history in its discontinuity and uniqueness, and Hegel, in attempting to determine general patterns of historical change. Indeed, historicism can perhaps be best termed a Hegelian philosophy of history without an all-encompassing notion of progress.

Rather than constituting a unified intellectual movement, historicism is best known for its elusiveness. Its multifarious quality can be inferred from the variety of critical positions taken up against it. Influential critiques of historicism have been written by Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich Rickert, Ernst Troeltsch, Walter Benjamin, Karl Löwith and Karl Popper. Critical engagement with historicism has focused on its alleged relativism, its alleged particularism, its alleged claims to totality, its alleged subjectivism and its alleged objectivism. More positive debates with historicism have significantly influenced the thought of Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl and Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Justice
Authors: Barry Brian , Matravers Matt
Published: September 2018

The idea of justice lies at the heart of moral and political philosophy. It is a necessary virtue of individuals in their interactions with others, and the principal virtue of social institutions, although not the only one. Just as an individual can display qualities such as integrity, charity and loyalty, so a society can also be more or less economically prosperous, artistically cultivated, and so on. Traditionally defined by the Latin tag ‘suum cuique tribuere’ – to allocate to each his own – justice has always been closely connected to the ideas of desert and equality. Rewards and punishments are justly distributed if they go to those who deserve them. But in the absence of different desert claims, justice demands equal treatment.

A common division of the topic distinguishes between corrective and distributive justice. Corrective justice covers that which is due to a person as punishment, distributive that which is due by way of benefits and burdens other than punishments. Within the sphere of corrective justice there is disagreement about the justification of punishment itself. But there has been – and is – widespread agreement on the criteria for just punishment: just punishments must be properly imposed and the quantum of punishment must reflect the seriousness of the offence.

There has been no such agreement about the content of just principles for the distribution of benefits and (non-punitive) burdens. Conventionalists claim that what is due to each person is given by the laws, customs and shared understandings of the community of which the person is a member. Teleologists believe that an account can be given of the good for human beings and that justice is the ordering principle through which a society (or humanity) pursues that good. Justice as mutual advantage proposes that the rules of justice can be derived from the rational agreement of each agent to cooperate with others to further their own self-interest. Theorists of what may be called justice as fairness believe that justice is a thin concept which provides a fair framework within which each person is enabled to pursue their own good.
Law, limits of
Authors: Smith G.W.
Published: September 2018

Questions concerning the proper limits of law are of particular interest to thinkers in the Western political tradition of individualism. In this tradition the law is regarded primarily as an instrument of coercion and the problem is to define the scope of law in such a way that it fulfils its necessary purposes at minimum cost to individual liberty. Debate therefore centres on the proper ends of legal coercion. Two law-limiting strategies are commonly adopted; the practical and the moral. As the most important ends of human life (salvation of the soul, or its secular equivalent, moral integrity) are taken to require the uncoerced, ’inward’, assent of the individual, the effective scope of the law is significantly limited on practical grounds to the regulation of ’outward’ behaviour. On the moral question concerning which behaviour ought to fall within the purview of the law, conservatives contend that society has a right to enforce its moral values by criminalizing whatever behaviour its members regard as ’sinful’. The characteristic strategy of liberals is to respond by arguing that unorthodox or unpopular activities must clearly be shown to be ’harmful’ before they may properly be outlawed. Much debate focuses upon the interpretation of this principle (the ‘harm principle’), particularly what is to count as ’harm’ for purposes of legislation, and whose harm is properly in question. Dissatisfaction on these crucial issues has led some liberals to reject what they consider to be the fruitless attempt to draw the line between liberty and law by balancing individual against social harm in favour of various theories of individual rights, while it has led others (communitarians and some feminists) to question the individualist assumptions in terms of which the problem of the limits of law gains its especial urgency.
Nation and nationalism
Authors: Miller David
Published: September 2018

No one observing political events in the world today could deny the continuing potency of nationalism. Many of the most intractable conflicts arise when one national community tries to break away from another, or when two such communities lay claim to the same piece of territory. Yet to outsiders the basis for such conflicts often seems mysterious. People are prepared to fight and die for their nation, yet what exactly is this ‘nation’ that commands such loyalty? Why should it matter so much that a person is governed by leaders drawn from one community rather than from another?

Philosophers are often inclined to dismiss nationalism as having no rational basis, but as resting merely on tribal instincts and brute emotions. Such a response overlooks the different forms that nationalism has taken: in particular, the contrast between authoritarian nationalism, which allows national cultures to be imposed by force and which may justify acts of aggression against neighbouring peoples, and liberal nationalism, which upholds the rights of individuals to form political communities with those with whom they feel identified and to protect their common culture. We need to examine carefully the arguments that have been advanced by nationalist thinkers in order to decide which form of nationalism, if any, is rationally defensible.
Neutrality, political
Authors: Waldron Jeremy
Published: September 2018

The principle of political neutrality, which requires the state to remain neutral on disputed questions about the good, is an extension of traditional liberal principles of toleration and religious disestablishment. However, since neutrality is itself a contested concept, the principle remains indeterminate: is it, for example, a requirement of neutral reasons for legislation (or neutral legislative intentions) or is it a more exacting requirement of equal impact in so far as legislative consequences are concerned? The answer must surely reflect the deeper values that are used to justify the neutrality principle. This raises further problems, however. If the principle is based upon certain value commitments – such as the importance of equality or individual autonomy – then it cannot require us to be neutral about all values. It requires some sort of distinction between principles of right (of which neutrality is one) and conceptions of the good (among which neutrality is required). Critics believe that liberal principles of right are symptomatic of a deeper liberal bias in favour of individuality as a way of life. Perhaps liberals should embrace this point, and accept that the neutrality they advocate is quite superficial compared to the depth of their own value commitments.
Obligation, political
Authors: Simmons A. John
Published: September 2018

The problem of political obligation has been one of the central concerns of political philosophy throughout the history of the subject. Political obligations are the moral obligations of citizens to support and comply with the requirements of their political authorities; and the problem of political obligation is that of understanding why (or if) citizens in various kinds of states are bound by such obligations. Most theorists conservatively assume that typical citizens in reasonably just states are in fact bound by these obligations. They take the problem to be that of advancing an account of the ground(s) or justification(s) of political obligation that is consistent with affirming widespread obligations. Other theorists, however, anarchists prominent among them, do not accept the conservative assumption, leaving open the possibility that the best theory of political obligation may entail that few, if any, citizens in actual states have political obligations.

Much of the modern debate about political obligation consists of attempts either to defend or to move beyond the alleged defects of voluntarist theories. Voluntarists maintain that only our own voluntary acts (such as freely consenting to the authority of our governments) can bind us to obedience. Because actual political societies appear not to be voluntary associations, however, voluntarism seems unable to satisfy conservative theoretical ambitions. Some individualists turn as a result to nonvoluntarist theories of political obligation, attempting to ground obligations in the receipt by citizens of the benefits governments supply or in the moral quality of their political institutions. Others reject individualism altogether, defending communitarian theories that base our political obligations in our social and political roles or identities. Individualist anarchists reject instead the conservative ambitions of such theories, embracing a voluntarism which entails that most citizens simply have no political obligations.
Population and ethics
Authors: Heyd David
Published: September 2018

Ethical concern with population policies and with the issue of optimal population size is, generally speaking, a modern phenomenon. Although the first divine injunction of the Bible is ‘be fertile and multiply’, systematic theoretical interest in the normative aspects of demography has become associated largely with recent developments which have provided humanity with unprecedented control over population size, mainly through medical and economic means. Once the determination of the number of people in the world is no longer a natural given fact, but rather a matter of individual or social choice, it becomes subject to moral evaluation.

However, the extension of traditional ethical principles to issues of population policies is bedevilled by paradoxes. The principle of utility, the ideal of self-perfection, the idea of a contract as a basis for political legitimacy and social justice, the notion of natural or human rights, and the principle of respect for persons - all these presuppose the existence of human beings whose interests, welfare, rights and dignity are to be protected and promoted. But population policies deal with the creation of people and the decision concerning their number. They relate to the creation of the very conditions for the application of ethical principles. And it need not be just their number - advances in genetics and reproductive technology may soon bring what sort of people they are to be to some extent under human control.
Property
Authors: Munzer Stephen R.
Published: September 2018

Most of the great philosophers have expressed views on property, its justification and limits, and especially on the justification of having private property; generally, one must understand these views against the background of the economic and social conditions of their times. Notable theories include first possession (roughly, ‘whoever gets their hands on it justifiably owns it’), labour (‘whoever made it deserves to own it’), utility and/or efficiency (‘allowing people to own things is the most effective way of running society’) and personality (‘owning property is necessary for personal development’).

Few thinkers now defend the first possession theory but all the other three have their contemporary supporters. Some philosophers combine two or more theories into multi-principled or ‘pluralist’ justifications of property ownership. Many express concern about wide gaps between rich and poor and argue for constraints on inequalities in property holdings.
Public interest
Authors: Weale Albert
Published: September 2018

The concept of the public interest can be used in a wide variety of ways, and this has led many to say that it is devoid of meaning. However, the concept enables us to evaluate the tendency of policies and institutions to promote the interests of the members of a society considered in their broadest relations, for example in connection with policies to promote public health. In this sense it has significance. Historically, the concept of the public interest has drawn upon three main traditions of thought: the utilitarian idea of utility maximization; the tradition of civic republicanism; and Rousseau’s idea of the general will. Nowadays, three main ways of meeting the public interest are distinguishable: the supply of certain indivisible goods like clean air; the preservation of identity-conferring social goods like a distinctive language; and the balancing of competing considerations in the making of public policy. Although the provision of goods in the public interest may be associated with injustice, there is no reason in general to think that justice and the public interest must conflict.
Rights
Authors: Martin Rex
Published: September 2018

There is widespread consensus that rights are ways of acting or of being treated that are beneficial to the rightholder. Controversy begins, however, when one attempts to specify the notion of rights further.

(1) It is sometimes said, perhaps too casually, that all rights carry with them correlated obligations – things that other persons are supposed to do or refrain from doing when some given person is said to have a right to something. The question is: how is it best to state this relationship between rights and correlated obligations?

(2) Most people think that rights are, in some sense, justified. But there is considerable controversy as to what, precisely, is the proper focus of justification. Some say that rights are practices (certain ways of acting or of being treated) that are established, typically socially established. Thus, the issue for them is whether the fact of social recognition and enforcement is justified (or could be). Others say that rights themselves are claims; hence a right is a justified claim or principle of some sort (whether the practice identified in that claim exists or not). This dispute, between rights as justified practices and rights as justified claims, needs to be explored and, if possible, resolved.

Other topics need addressing beyond the question of the initial characterization of rights. One of them is the question of the function of rights: what good are they anyway? what can one do with rights? Another is the question of how best to justify particular kinds of rights, such as human rights and basic constitutional rights. Is there a substantive theory of critical morality that can do the job? Many people are concerned, especially, with whether utilitarianism (one of the dominant ethical theories in the West today) is up to this task. Finally, mention should be made of one other issue much talked about of late: what kinds of beings can have rights, and under what conditions of possession and dispossession?
Slavery
Authors: Esquith Stephen L. , Smith Nicholas D.
Published: September 2018

The moral, economic and political value of slavery has been hotly disputed by philosophers from ancient times. It was defended as an institution by Plato and Aristotle, but became increasingly subject to attack in the modern period, until its general abolition in the Western world in the nineteenth century.

In the twentieth century our belief that slavery is fundamentally unjust has become a benchmark against which moral and political philosophies may be tested. Both utilitarians and contractarian philosophers have argued against slavery in general and the enforceability of slavery contracts more specifically, although for very different moral reasons. Others have argued that only by viewing slavery from the standpoint of the slave can its moral significance be understood.
Contractarianism
Authors: Freeman Samuel
Published: September 2018

The idea that political relations originate in contract or agreement has been applied in several ways. In Plato’s Republic Glaucon suggests that justice is but a pact among rational egoists. Thomas Hobbes developed this idea to analyse the nature of political power.Given the predominantly self-centred nature of humankind, government is necessary for society. Government’s role is to stabilize social cooperation. By exercising enforcement powers, government provides each with the assurance that everyone else will abide by cooperative rules, thereby making it rational for all to cooperate. To fulfil this stabilizing role, Hobbes argued that it is rational for each individual to agree to authorize one person to exercise absolute political power. Neo-Hobbesians eschew absolutism and apply the theory of rational choice to argue that rules of justice, perhaps even all morality, can be construed in terms of a rational bargain among self-interested individuals.

John Locke, working from different premises than Hobbes, appealed to a social compact to argue for a constitutional government with limited powers. All men are born with a natural right to equal freedom, and a natural duty to God to preserve themselves and the rest of mankind. No government is just unless it could be commonly agreed to form a position of equal freedom, where agreement is subject to the moral constraints of natural law. Absolutism is unjust according to this criterion.

Rousseau developed egalitarian features of Locke’s view to contend for a democratic constitution.The Social Contract embodies the General Will of society, not the unconstrained private wills of its members. The General Will wills the common good, the good of society and all of its members. Only by bringing our individual wills into accord with the General Will can we achieve civic and moral freedom.

In this century, John Rawls has recast natural rights theories of the social contract to argue for a liberal egalitarian conception of justice. From a position of equality, where each person abstracts from knowledge of their historical situations, it is rational for all to agree on principles of justice that guarantee equal basic freedoms and resources adequate for each person’s independence.

T.M. Scanlon, meanwhile, has outlined a right-based contractualist account of morality. An act is right if it accords with principles that could not be reasonably rejected by persons who are motivated by a desire to justify their actions according to principles that no one else can reasonably reject.
Social democracy
Authors: Miller David
Published: September 2018

The idea of social democracy is now used to describe a society the economy of which is predominantly capitalist, but where the state acts to regulate the economy in the general interest, provides welfare services outside of it and attempts to alter the distribution of income and wealth in the name of social justice. Originally ’social democracy’ was more or less equivalent to ’socialism’. But since the mid-twentieth century, those who think of themselves as social democrats have come to believe that the old opposition between capitalism and socialism is outmoded; many of the values upheld by earlier socialists can be promoted by reforming capitalism rather than abolishing it.

Although it bases itself on values like democracy and social justice, social democracy cannot really be described as a political philosophy: there is no systematic statement or great text that can be pointed to as a definitive account of social democratic ideals. In practical politics, however, social democratic ideas have been very influential, guiding the policies of most Western states in the post-war world.
Totalitarianism
Authors: Canovan Margaret
Published: September 2018

A term adopted in the 1920s by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile to describe the ideal fascist state, ‘totalitarianism’ quickly acquired negative connotations as it was applied to the regimes of Hitler in Germany and Stalin in the USSR. Within political science it has generally been used to refer to a distinctively modern form of dictatorship based not only on terror but also on mass support mobilized behind an ideology prescribing radical social change. Controversially, the specific content of the ideology is considered less significant than the regime’s determination to form the minds of the population through control of all communications.

Totalitarianism has attracted the attention of philosophers as well as political scientists because a number of classic philosophical systems have been suspected of harbouring totalitarian aspirations, and also because the model of total power exercised through discourse has been used by critical theorists to mount an attack on modernity in general.