Political theory

Antal Szerletics
Szerletics.Antal@uni-nke.hu
 Raphael: The School of Athens

Averroës Heraclitus Diogenes

Epicurus (Michelangelo)
 Plato
• Athenian aristocratic family
• Crisis of Athenian democracy
• Peloponnesian War and period of Thirty Tyrants

• Aristocratic political views

• Suspicious of democracy
Plato
427/428–348/347 BC
• Student of Socrates
• Later establishes his own school (Academy of Athens)
 Plato
• Major influence on western philosophy
• “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is
that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” (A. Whitehead)

• Platonic idealism: two worlds

A. World of ideas (forms):
I. Cannot be empirically experienced, only a few people have access to it
II. ‘Perfect world’
B. Material world:
I. Can be empirically experienced (with senses)
II. ‘Imperfect world’
Allegory of the cave
• Plato: Republic (Book VII)

• Prisoners shackled and can only

look forward.

• Fire casts light on the walls of the

cave. Prisoners see only shadows
but consider them real.

• Some prisoners decide to turn and

leave the cave. Blinded by the
sunlight first, their eyes slowly
adjust to the bright light of forms.
They return to the cave but the
others consider them mad and
dangerous.
 Political theory
(Empirical) political science Political theory

Descriptive character Normative character

What there is? What there should be?

Describe and analyse existing political systems Look for the ideal political system
Theoretical method (cannot be based on
Based on empirical observations empirical observations because what exists is
rarely ideal)

Political theory or political philosophy?

1. Political theory: a subfield of political science (Grigsby)
2. Political philosophy: a subfield of practical philosophy (moral/political/legal philosophy)
 Political theory
1. What purpose should the state serve?
• How to justify political authority? Where does political authority come from?
2. Should states promote equality?
• Different conceptualizations of justice and equality
3. Should states restrain their power?
• Separation of powers
• Rule of law
• Human rights
4. Should states try to help us be ethical?
• Limits of state intervention
• Legal paternalism and moralism
 Political authority
• Power vs authority

• Power
• Gunman has power over his victims but has no
authority
• It is not accepted and victims do not want to comply

• Authority
• Someone with authority usually has power, but it also
implies acceptance and compliance
• State has political and legal authority overcitizens
 Rejection of political authority
• Anarchism
• Usually left-wing, egalitarian and rejects capitalism
• Pierre-Jospeh Proudhon, Bakunyin, Kropotkin
• Anarcho-capitalism (libertarian anarchism)
• Murray Rothbard
• Accepts capitalism and private property
• Market can take over every function of the state
• Education Murray
Rothbard
• Health care
1926-1995
• Policing and public order
• Legal and judicial system
 Sources of political authority
Divine authority theory
• Authority of the ruler comes from the authority of God
• The ruler is God
• The ruler is related to God (Pharaohs in Egypt – the son
of Re)
• Ruler is human but was given the authority by God
• Pope of the Catholic Church: God’s vicar on Earth
• Divine rights theory of Robert Filmer (1588-1653)
• God granted political authority to Adam in the Garden of Eden
• Monarchs can trace back their lineage to Adam
 Sources of political authority
• Perfectionist theory of political authority
• Ideal society:
1) Guardians (rulers)
• To lead others
• Virtue of wisdom (philosophers and the philosopher-king)
2) Auxiliaries (soldiers)
• To protect others
• Virtue of courage
3) Workers Plato
• To produce material goods 427/428–348/347 BC
• Virtue of moderation

• + Virtue of justice (dikaiosune)

• Justice = following nature
• Everyone is destined to his or her own category by nature
 Sources of political authority
• Natural subordination theory
• Humans are naturally inclined to live in society and
establish the state
• Political animal (zoon politikon)
• Some people are naturally subordinated to others
• Slaves: lack of reason
• Women: reason distorted by emotions
• Two problems: Aristotle
384 – 322 BC
• Are there really such differences between people?
• Even if some are naturally ‘better’ than others, does it give
power over them?
 Source of political authority
• Social contract theories (consent of individuals)
• Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (1653)
• State of nature
• No state and no laws
• People are free, equal and rational
• Problem of trust
• War of all against all: life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.
• Establishing the state
• People agree to establish the state
• They alienate all their rights to the Sovereign
• Sovereign provides peace and stability
• Leviathan and absolute monarchy
 Source of political authority
• John Locke: Two treatises of government (1689)
• State of nature
• No state and no laws
• Less hostile than Hobbes’ state of nature
• Natural rights (right to life, liberty and estate)
• Establishing the state
• People agree to establish civil society (unanimously)
• People appoint the monarch (majority decision)
• Agency social contract
• Constitutional monarchy
• Glorius revolution (1688-1689)
• Limited power of monarchs
 Justice
1. Distributive justice
• Just distribution of goods in society (social justice)
• Distribution according to merit and virtues (not equally!)

2. Corrective (commutative) justice

• It operates between two individuals Aristotle
• It applies equally (‘mechanically’) to both parties 384 – 322 BC

• Complements distributive justice: it restores the previously just

system of distribution
• E.g. damage of property, violation of contract, theft, etc.
Justice
• Ambrogio Lorenzetti: Justice.
The Allegory of Good and Bad
Government (Siena, 1337-
1340)

• Commutative justice

• Distributive justice
 The parable of the flute
1. Anna: ‘I should get the flute because I am the only one who knows
how to play it.’

2. Bob: ‘I should get the flute because I am coming from a poor family. I
have no toys while Anna and Carla have a lot to play with.’

3. Carla: ‘I should get the flute because I made it’.

Who should get the flute?

Amartya Sen: The Idea of Justice (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2009) 12-15.
 Distributive justice
A. Utilitarian distribution:
• Just distribution = most efficient distribution
• Is that always true?

B. Egalitarian distribution:
• Solidarity (initial biological and social inequalities)
• Problem of motivation
• What should be equally distributed? Equality of what?
• Welfare egalitarianism vs. resource egalitarianism

C. Meritocratic (libertarian) distribution:

• What is merit?
• Is success always the success of the individual? Talent? Good education?
 Distributive justice
• John Rawls (1921-2002)

• Is it possible to create a theory that combines the

three schemes of distribution?

• ‘Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged

so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged.’ The Belknap Press of
Harvard University
• Equality is not paramount, inequalities are possible Press, 1971
• But they need to benefit the least disadvantaged.