Political scientists and

thinkers
is called the father of political science because he elaborated
on the topics and thinking of the Ideal State, slavery, revolution,
education, citizenship, forms of government, the theory of golden Aristotle
mean, theory of constitution etc.
Political theory of Aristotle
• Turning from the Ethics treatises to their sequel, the Politics,
the reader is brought down to earth. “Man is a political animal,”
Aristotle observes; human beings are creatures of flesh and
blood, rubbing shoulders with each other in cities
and communities. Like his work in zoology, Aristotle’s political
studies combine observation and theory. He and his students
documented the constitutions of 158 states—one of which, The
Constitution of Athens, has survived on papyrus. The aim of
the Politics, Aristotle says, is to investigate, on the basis of the
constitutions collected, what makes for good government and
what makes for bad government and to identify the factors
favourable or unfavourable to the preservation of
a constitution. Aristotle asserts that all communities aim at
some good.
The state (polis), by which he means a city-state such as Athens, is the
highest kind of community, aiming at the highest of goods. The most
primitive communities are families of men and women, masters and
slaves. Families combine to make a village, and several villages combine
to make a state, which is the first self-sufficient community. The state is
no less natural than the family; this is proved by the fact that human
beings have the power of speech, the purpose of which is “to set forth the
expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the
unjust.” The foundation of the state was the greatest of benefactions,
because only within a state can human beings fulfill their potential.
Government, Aristotle says, must be in the hands of one, of a few, or of
the many; and governments may govern for the general good or for the
good of the rulers. Government by a single person for the general good is
called “monarchy”; for private benefit, “tyranny.” Government by a
minority is “aristocracy” if it aims at the state’s best interest and
“oligarchy” if it benefits only the ruling minority. Popular government in
the common interest Aristotle calls “polity”; he reserves the word
“democracy” for anarchic mob rule.
• If a community contains an individual or family of outstanding
excellence, then, Aristotle says, monarchy is the best constitution.
But such a case is very rare, and the risk of miscarriage is great, for
monarchy corrupts into tyranny, which is the worst constitution of
all. Aristocracy, in theory, is the next-best constitution after
monarchy (because the ruling minority will be the best-qualified to
rule), but in practice Aristotle preferred a kind
of constitutional democracy, for what he called “polity” is a state in
which rich and poor respect each other’s rights and the best-qualified
citizens rule with the consent of all.
• Two elements of Aristotle’s teaching affected European political
institutions for many centuries: his justification of slavery and his
condemnation of usury. Some people, Aristotle says, think that the
rule of master over slave is contrary to nature and therefore unjust.
But they are quite wrong: a slave is someone who is by nature not his
o w n p r o p e r t y b u t s o m e o n e e l s e ’ s .
• Aristotle agrees, however, that in practice much slavery is unjust,
and he speculates that, if nonliving machines could be made to
carry out menial tasks, there would be no need for slaves as
living tools. Nevertheless, some people are so inferior and
brutish that it is better for them to be controlled by a master
than to be left to their own devices.
• Although not himself an aristocrat, Aristotle had an
aristocratic disdain for commerce. Our possessions, he says,
have two uses, proper and improper. Money too has a proper
and an improper use; its proper use is to be exchanged for goods
and services, not to be lent out at interest. Of all the methods of
making money, “taking a breed from barren metal” is the most
u n n a t u r a l .
Enlightenment philosophers
• John Locke
• The English philosopher and political
theorist John Locke (1632-1704) laid
much of the groundwork for the
Enlightenment and made central
contributions to the development of
liberalism. Trained in medicine, he was a
key advocate of the empirical approaches
of the Scientific Revolution. In his “Essay
Concerning Human Understanding,” he
advanced a theory of the self as a blank
page, with knowledge and identity arising
only from accumulated experience. His
political theory of government by the
consent of the governed as a means to
protect the three natural rights of “life,
liberty and estate” deeply influenced the
United States’ founding documents. His
Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1689)
outlined a theory of human knowledge, identity and selfhood
that would be hugely influential to Enlightenment thinkers.
To Locke, knowledge was not the discovery of anything
either innate or outside of the individual, but simply the
accumulation of “facts” derived from sensory experience. To
discover truths beyond the realm of basic experience, Locke
suggested an approach modeled on the rigorous methods of
experimental science, and this approach greatly impacted
the Scientific Revolution.
John Locke’s Views on Government The “Two Treatises of
Government” (1690) offered political theories developed and
refined by Locke during his years at Shaftesbury’s side.
Rejecting the divine right of kings, Locke said that societies
form governments by mutual (and, in later generations,
tacit/unspoken) agreement. Thus, when a king loses the
consent of the governed, a society may remove him—an
approach quoted almost verbatim in Thomas Jefferson's
1776 Declaration of Independence. Locke also developed a
definition of property as the product of a person’s labor that
would be foundational for both Adam Smith’s capitalism
• In three “Letters Concerning Toleration” (1689-92),
Locke suggested that governments should respect
freedom of religion except when the dissenting belief
was a threat to public order. Atheists (whose oaths
could not be trusted) and Catholics (who owed
allegiance to an external ruler) were thus excluded
from his scheme. Even within its limitations, Locke’s
toleration did not argue that all (Protestant) beliefs
were equally good or true, but simply that
governments were not in a position to decide which
one was correct.

• John Locke’s Death

• Locke spent his final 14 years in Essex at the home of
Sir Francis Masham and his wife, the philosopher Lady
Damaris Cudworth Masham. He died there on October
Charles Montesquieu
Montesquieu, born Charles-Louis de
Secondat, grew up in a wealthy
family, which allowed him to pursue
a good education and become well-
known in important social circles in
France. Important ly, Montesquieu
inherited the title of "Baron de
Montesquieu" from his uncle.
Montesquieu studied and practiced
law for many years, which had a key
influence on his political philosophy.
Montesquieu was born during the
reign of Louis XIV, a king who
exerted heavily centralized power
across France. Louis XIV was the
embodiment of absolutism, a system
wherein autocrats rule without any
legal restriction on their power.
Montesquieu's beliefs were often concerned with political and legal issues. He
was an advocate for limited government, in which rulers were bound to follow
laws. Montesquieu's philosophy also argued that power should be decentralized,
and he thus introduced the idea of separation of powers. Beyond this,
Montesquieu's ideas also included skepticism toward the rigid society of
traditional France, and Montesquieu also supported trade and commerce. Some
of the most important beliefs to Montesquieu's philosophy thus included:
1. Limited government
In political philosophy, limited government is the concept of a government limited in power. It
is a key concept in the history of liberalism.
The US government is a prominent example of a limited government. The US constitution
limits the power of the federal government. Countries like America, Australia, Japan, and
India follow a similar structure of governance.

2. Separation of powers
Separation of powers is a model that divides the government into separate branches,
each of which has separate and Independent powers
Montesquieu concluded that the best form of government was one in which the legislative,
executive, and judicial powers were separate and kept each other in check to prevent any
branch from becoming too powerful. He believed that uniting these powers, as in the
monarchy of Louis XIV, would lead to despotism..
3. Growth of trade and commerce
• Montesquieu was a great proponent of commerce. Specifically, Montesquieu
argued that commerce was one of the best ways for a state to grow its
wealth and increase its power, as opposed to territorial expansion and
military activities. At the same time, Montesquieu argued against the
mercantilists of his day. Mercantilism contends that trade is a zero-sum
game in which there are clear winners and losers. Instead, Montesquieu
argued that everyone benefits from trade. This idea would later influence
Adam Smith, who helped establish the ideas of capitalism.
Mercantilism is an economic practice by which governments used their economies to
augment state power at the expense of other countries. Governments sought to ensure
that exports exceeded imports and to accumulate wealth in the form of bullion (mostly gold
and silver).
Mercantilism, in simple words is also called "commercialism,” a system in which a
country attempts to amass wealth through trade with other countries, exporting more
than it imports and increasing stores of gold and precious metals. It is often
considered an outdated system.
For example, tropical fruits cannot be grown in western countries such as the UK and
France, so need to be imported. At the same time, it forces a country to be self-reliant.
As opposed to Capitalism, CAPITALISM is an economic system in which private owners
control the country's trade and industry, rather than by the state, while Mercantilism is an
economic theory and practice that advocates governmental regulation of the nation's
economy to generate wealth and augment national power)
"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva,
Switzerland—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), Swiss-born
philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels
inspired the leaders of the French
• His early work argued that the development of civilisation had actually
led to a decrease in happiness, and that humans should live instead in
a state that was as close to nature as possible. The Social Contract,
with its famous opening sentence 'Man is born free, and he is
everywhere in chains', stated instead that people could only
experience true freedom if they lived in a civil society that ensured the
rights and well-being of its citizens. Being part of such a society
involved submitting to the general will – a force that transcended
individuals and aimed to uphold the common good.
The Social Contract has also been seen as one of the defining texts of
modern political philosophy, emphasizing the need for individuals to play a
responsible part in civil society if they want their liberty to be assured.
Rousseau argued that freedom and authority are not contradictory,
since legitimate laws are founded on the general will of the citizens. In
obeying the law, the individual citizen is thus only obeying himself as a
member of the political community.
Rousseau’s own understanding of the general will emerged from
a critique of Denis Diderot,In his article “Droit naturel” (“Natural Right”)
published in 1755 in the Encyclopédie, Diderot argued that morality is based
on the general will of humankind to improve its own happiness. Individuals
can access this moral ideal by reflecting on their interests as members of the
human race. The general will, Diderot believed, is necessarily directed at the
good since its object is the betterment of all.
Adam Smith
• Adam Smith, (baptized June 5, 1723,
Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland—died July 17, 1790,
Edinburgh), Scottish social philosopher and
political economist.
• Adam Smith is a towering figure in the history of
economic thought. Known primarily for a single
work—An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of
the Wealth of Nations (1776), the
first comprehensive system of political
economy—he is more properly regarded as a
social philosopher whose economic
writings constitute only the capstone to an
overarching view of political and social evolution.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments 
In 1759 Smith published his first work, The Theory of Moral
Sentiments. Didactic, exhortative, and analytic by turns, it lays the
psychological foundation on which The Wealth of Nations was later to be built.
In it Smith described the principles of “human nature,” which, together with
Hume and the other leading philosophers of his time, he took as
a universal and unchanging datum from which social institutions, as well as
social behaviour, could be deduced.
One question in particular interested Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
This was a problem that had attracted Smith’s teacher Hutcheson and a
number of Scottish philosophers before him. The question was the source of
the ability to form moral judgments, including judgments on one’s own
behaviour, in the face of the seemingly overriding passions for self-preservation
and self-interest. Smith’s answer, at considerable length, is the presence within
each person of an “inner man” who plays the role of the “impartial spectator,”
approving or condemning one’s own and others’ actions with a voice
impossible to disregard.
• (The theory may sound less naive if the question is reformulated to
ask how instinctual drives are socialized through the superego.) The
thesis of the impartial spectator, however, conceals a more important
aspect of the book. Smith saw humans as creatures driven by
passions and at the same time self-regulated by their ability
to reason and—no less important—by their capacity for sympathy.
This duality serves both to pit individuals against one another and to
provide them with the rational and moral faculties to create
institutions by which the internecine struggle can be mitigated and
even turned to the common good. He wrote in his Moral
Sentiments the famous observation that he was to repeat later in The
Wealth of Nations: that the self-seeking rich are often “led by an
invisible hand…without knowing it, without intending it, [to]
advance the interest of the society.”