Questions tagged [political-philosophy]
Describing questions about the philosophy of politics and society which investigate concerns like liberty, justice and equality.
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Are people naturally cooperative or selfish?
Machiavelli's The Prince has a rather low view of humanity. He paints humans as fickle, and ready to turn in desperate moments. This may be attributed to the fact that he was in exile and lived in a ...
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Ideas of a truth that sustains?
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Given the modern day age of misinformation, surely someone has pondered and tested their ideas of a truth that sustains (a truth that sustains refers to the ideas that sustain the confidence ...
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Is the term "freedom" sometimes used by those who govern a nation into a poor state of affairs for the people?
Cuba is a socialist regime with no "freedom" accordingly to many people. In Cuba there is a very low crime rate, most of the country is safe.
El Salvador is a capitalist country with very ...
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In political philosophy, what is the label for those who work to preserve a negative peace been called? [closed]
According to peace studies which examines violence through a multi-disciplinary lens and relies heavily on political philosophy, there is a recognition of the status quo. The condition absent of ...
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Fallacy of division in an old book
I have identified a fallacy of division in an old book written in Spanish and I would like you to confirm if it is indeed a logical fallacy. The underlined part of the image contains the argument that ...
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Is there a modern country (21st century) that would be considered totalitarian under Arendt's account? If not, does that make her theory flawed? [closed]
I was wondering if there is any modern-day country that can be considered totalitarian according to Hannah Arendt (where the totalitarian regime is defined by its endless motion, total domination over ...
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How is the 'central fiction' of Zionism to be understood politically?
Deleuze in his essay, The Grandeur of Arafat, writes:
Zionism, then the state of Israel, will demand that the Palestinians recognise its right. But the State of Israel will never speak of ...
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What does this mean about critical theory?
In the introduction of her recent book "Between Gaia and Ground", Elizabeth Povinelli says:
This book examines four axioms of existence that have emerged in
recent years across a ...
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Does a philosophy scholar in the modern world need to study ancient philosophy?
I am a philosophy enthusiast and I study philosophy on my own. I wanted to know whether a philosophy scholar in the modern world needs to study the ancient philosophical ideas, such as those by ...
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What is the doctrine of using violence to preserve peace called?
What is the correct way to describe the philosophy on the subject of 'war to make peace' or 'justification of short-term violence on the road to long-term peace'. Si vis pacem, para bellum is another ...
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Who is Barclay, the supporter of monarchy, mentioned in John Locke's treatise of government?
In John Locke's two treatises of government he mentions "This is so evident, that Barclay himself, that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is forced to confess" (chapter 19,...
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Is Baudrillard's work left-wing or right-wing?
What hints can we draw from his philosophy to situate his politics ? For example the French philosopher Deleuze is obviously an anticatapitalist as understood from his ideas in Anti-oedipus.
Drawing ...
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What is the philosophical idea concerning knowledge behind the project of Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a human project done collectively in a global scale. What is the philosophy or epistemology underlying this project? Has the idea been to establish sort of a "democratic" source ...
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Papers on whether or not college is a basic human right
It seems to be a fairly popular mantra in many contemporary left-of-center political circles that a college education is a basic human right. What does academia have to say about this? Are there any ...
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Can liberalism be proven logically [closed]
Can modern, Democrat Liberal ideology be proven logically, ie, does it extend rationally from logical axioms, or does it have other means of axiomatization.
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Has the phenomenon of equating two different ideas been studied?
While reading Henry Kissinger's book, Diplomacy, I came across several examples of thinkers conveniently, but constructively (meaning with good intentions), equating one concept with another. The ...
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Do some philosophies hold there are limits to free speech?
Imagine many philosophers believe that the right to freedom of speech of everyone in the world should be ensured without exception.
Now think about a situation where a huge number of citizens in a ...
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Would Hannah Arendt classify raking leaves each autumn as labour or work?
Hannah Arendt was a Holocaust survivor and philosopher. In her work, The Human Condition, she takes an interest in the understanding of human activities. From WP:
The Human Condition,1 first ...
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Arguments against forcing insurance of any kind by a state
Some states force their residents to pay for a broad insurance service often named "national insurance" or "social security"; it doesn't even matter if the subject has private ...
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Rousseau Experts, Assemble! (to identify a quote)
I know this is a long shot, but I am looking for a quote from Rousseau. I heard it a long time ago and have looked for it many times, but I have not been able to find it.
In the quote (only about 1-to-...
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Who acts in Arendt's Human Condition?
In Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, she categorises the active life as Labor, Work and Action where labor is performed by animal laborans and work by homo faber. To my knowledge, Arendt does not ...
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Is there any agreement about how many people are required to create a state?
What is the minimal number of beings (humans on earth or X on Y for that matter) to actually run anything we would call a "state"?
Perhaps a better question would be about how many people ...
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Is there any agreement on what makes a state "state"?
Is there any agreement on what makes a state "state"?
Is it de facto tax collection (especially, customs)?
Is it the number of general-residents ("permanent-residents") in a given ...
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Paradox relating to the act of resolving systematic discrimination
I live in India, here at birth we are assigned something called 'caste' based on our genealogy. For a long time in India, it was often that certain castes had access to much more resources than other ...
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Can an Anarchist be a mathematician? [closed]
Can an Anarchist (someone who rejects any physical sentient being's authority) be a mathematician?
Isn't formal axioms and practical axioms ("how many digits should come after a decimal point&...
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Do historians have responsibility in how they decide to depict something?
Do historians have responsibility in how they decide to depict something?
Isn't it possible that historical interpretations could be utilized for rationalizing e.g. war?
Presumably there's also "...
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What is the rationale of making a big deal of the distinction between positive and negative liberty?
In political philosophy, Isaiah Berlin's distinction between positive and negative liberties is very influential. Many took this distinction and went on to argue that a political system should, first ...
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Who was the first philosopher to build a comprehensive philosophy around the concept of power?
Friedrich Nietzsche seems to have written extensively about power but there seem to be much earlier philosophers who wrote extensively about power like Spinoza.
Who was the first philosopher to build ...
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How Biases and Prejudices Deviate the Philosophy of Peace in round table meeting of world politics
Why do politically strengthened nations deviate from the ideal of peace building and misuse power through bias, prejudice, and subjugation of others towards "peace," but not actual, absolute ...
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What does 'language' mean in Political Philosophy?
This practical and critical objective is achieved in two steps. The first is a critical survey of the languages and practices in which the struggles arise, and various theoretical solutions are ...
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Is a nation state morally obliged at all times to put its own citizens' interests before every other person's?
Is a nation state morally obliged at all times to put its own citizens' interests before every other person's?
it may sound odd to ask about obligation as it applies to a state, as they themselves ...
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Is there any meaning to political criticism by people who are not in the government? [closed]
There are all sorts of people who criticize the government for various good or bad decisions.
It could be meaningful if they have studied it to great depth and give constructive criticism, but, that's ...
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Is anarchism a self-refuting proposition?
My thinking: Anarchists want to forbid the existence of the State.
However, in a society with no state, someone can achieve such a predominance over their peers that they can forbid anyone else from ...
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How to convince an anti-rawlsian of the pertinence of the "veil of ignorance" condition?
My question is not about the contractarian methodology adopted by Rawls, but specfically about the "veil of ignorance" condition.
How to articulate precisely the moral intuition that is ...
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Which distribution is allowed by Rawls's difference principle?
Let's say we have the following different distributions of monetary wealth possible for a society. Here, LAG := Least Advantaged Group, OG := Ordinary group, MAG := Most Advantaged Group.
Type
LAG
OG
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Can a subculture be appropriated?
All the examples of cultural appropriation I see involve taking some element out of wider culture, and implementing it in their own.
If subcultures are a subset of elements from within a larger ...
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Why does poverty still exist in the world that discovered advanced technologies? [closed]
For example some individuals may say 'a poor life of an individual is because that he doesn't work enough'.
The world advanced as much as inventing many advanced technologies such as gun, calculator, ...
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Why is the Hobbesian leviathan less fearful than the state of nature?
In Leviathan, Hobbes argues the importance of self-preservation and the fearful condition of the state of nature, which leads to the formation of a sovereign power that compromises natural liberties ...
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Do social media such as Facebook enhance democratic values? [closed]
It might seem impossible to imagine the public sphere without digital platforms as today's social media. The number of Facebook's users is about third of the world's population - that points to an ...
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What's the use of extreme examples? [closed]
Let me make the question more specific. In the open course <Justice: what's the right thing to do?> a lot of extreme examples have been discussed. For example:
the trolley car problem: to kill ...
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Who first said that he who cannot govern himself cannot govern others?
What philosopher said that he who cannot govern himself cannot govern others?
I heard that Foucault said something similar, but surely Aristotle or even King Solomon may have said something similar.
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What is bourgeois liberalism (as associated with Rorty)?
In his SEP-article on Richard Rorty, Bjorn Ramberg on two occasions mentions bourgeois liberalism without offering any details of what Rorty or others mean by it. I have never come across this ...
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What type of logical fallacy happens here?
This has been going on a lot lately in my country. Usually, in a discussion where some antisocial behavior of an organization is being criticized, a supporter of the organization, usually a member of ...
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Has the concept of bodily integrity been discussed in the context of the human-nature relationship?
Human rights and many constitutions protect humans' bodily integrity. The concept is regularly linked to personal autonomy, freedom of movement and choice (Wikipedia).
The idea that the origin and ...
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How do Aquinas' and Aristotle's mixed regimes differ?
Both Aristotle and Aquinas seem to subscribe to the idea of a mixed constitution as the form of government best disposed to the common good. By "mixed constitution", I mean mixing between ...
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What relationship should we have with people in power? [closed]
Suppose there is a village of a hundred people, and the hundred people democratically elect a leader X. Now, X was included in a lot of social circles from the beginning, should the people have the ...
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Could a State be considered as a huge famlly?
The members of a State are alledgedly supposed to form a national community, to have a shared identity. The ancient generations of a nation are referred to as the " fathers". A patriot is ...
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Is profiting from stock ownership moral?
When you buy shares of a company, you become its co-owner and are entitled to dividends proportional to your investment. From what I understand, co-ownership is offered simply because it has to be to ...
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What did Judith Butler mean by "differential axis of domination" in Gender Trouble?
Can anyone explain the meaning of the following from Judith Butler's Gender Trouble:
Juridical notions of power appear to regulate political life in purely negative terms—that is, through the ...
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Why is Nietzche's "Amor Fati" descibed as the "key to fascism"?
I am trying to understand fascism (in its various forms) in philosophical/ideological terms. From what I've understood so far, it seems that (considered on its own terms) fascist ideology points ...
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