Political Science Western Political Thoughts

MODULE I
A - PLATO (427-347 BC)
The imperishable contribution of the Greeks to western civilization lies in the taming of man
and nature through reason. The Greeks were not the first to think about recurrent regularities of
inanimate events, but they were the first to develop the scientific attitude, a new approach to the
world that constitutes to this day one of the distinctive elements of western life. In the field of human
relations, too, Greek inventiveness and originality lay, not in this or that political theory, but in the
discovery of the scientific study of politics. The Greek school has produced eminent thinkers like
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
In the entire history of political thought no thinker evoked the admiration, reverence and
criticism that Plato did- Plato has left behind many important works out of which three the Republic,
(380-370 BC) the States man (360 BC) and the Laws (350BC), were of perennial interest to all
those interested in the history of political ideas. Plato has been generally regarded as the founder of
philosophical idealism by virtues of his conviction that there is a universal idea in the world of
eternal reality beyond the world of the senses. He was the first to formulate and define political
ideas within a larger framework of a philosophical idea of Good. He was concerned about human
life and human soul or human nature, and the real question in it is how to live best in the state within
the European intellectual traditions. He conceptualized the disorders and crises of the actual world
and presented to his readers a vision of a desirable political order, which till today has fascinated his
admirers and detractors. He has been described as a poet of ideas, a philosopher of beauty and the
true founder of the cult of harmonious living. He has been praised for his denunciation of
materialism and brutish selfishness. Both Voltaire (1694-1778) and Nietzsche (1844-1900)
characterized Platonism as the intellectual side of Christianity. Many like John Ruskin (1819-1900)
and William Morris (1834-1896) were attracted by Plato’s concern for human perfection and
excellence. Plato, along with his disciple Aristotle has been credited for laying the foundations of
Greek political theory on which the western political tradition rests. These two thinkers between
themselves have explored, stated, analyzed and covered a wild range of philosophical perspectives
and issues.
Plato was born in May-June 428/27 BC in Athens in an aristocratic though not affluent,
family. His father, Ariston, traced his ancestry to the early kings of Athens. His mother, Pericitione,
was a descendant of Solon, the famous law giver of Athens. Plato’s original name was Aristocles,
which meant the “best and renowned”. He was given the nick name ’Plato’, derived from platys,
because of his broad and strong shoulders. He was known for his good looks and charming
disposition. He excelled in the study of music, mathematics and poetry. He excelled in the study of
music, mathematics and poetry. He fought in three wars and won an award for bravery. He met
Socrates in 407 BC at the age of 20 and since then was under his hypnotic spell. The trial and
execution of Socrates in 399 BC proved to be a turning point in Plato’s life. In 386 BC on returning
to Athens, Plato’s friends gifted him a recreation spot named after its local hero Academns. It was
here that Plato established his Academy which became a seat of higher learning and intellectual
pursuits in Greece for the next one hundred years. The academy was initially a religious group
Western Political Thought

dedicated to the worship of Muses and its leader Apollo. The academy concreticised the possibility
of a science of knowledge with which one could reform the world. Plato saw in the academy a
training school for future philosophic rulers’. As Taylor has beautifully commented the founding of
Academy is a turning point in Plato’s life and in some ways the most memorable event in the history
of European science. It was a permanent institution for the pursuit of science by original research.
Plato spent the last years of his life at the academy, teaching and instructing. He died in 347 BC
while attending the wedding feast of one of his students. Plato’s works include the Apology of
Socrates, 22 genuine and 11 disputed dialogues, and 13 letters. Apology was an imaginative and
satirical version of Socrates’ defence trail.
The Republic, the Statesman and the Laws were Plato’s major works in political philosophy. The
Republic was collection of Plato’s ideas in the field of ethics, metaphysics, philosophy and politics.
The Republic, concerning justice, the greatest and most well- known work of Plato, was written in
the form of a dialogue, a method of great importance in clarifying questions and establishing truth. It
was one of the finest examples of the dialectical method as stated and first developed by Socrates.
Though Socrates did not provide a theoretical exposition of the method, he established a clear-cut
pattern of dialectical reasoning for others to follow. He placed dialectics in the service of ethics,
defining virtue as a basis for traditional and moral transformation. The discussion in the Republic
was conducted in a single room among Socrates. The Republic in Greek means justice, and should
not be used or understood in this Latin sense meaning the states or the polity’ As has been rightly
pointed out by William Ebenstein, after twenty three hundred years the Republic “is still match less
as an introduction to the basic issues that confront human being as citizens”. No other writer on
politics has equaled Plato in combining penetrating and dialectical reasoning with poetic imagery
and symbolism. One of the main assumptions of the Republic is that the right kind of government
and politics can be the legitimate object of rigorous scientific thinking rather than the inevitable
product of muddling through fear and faith, indolence and improvisation.
THEORY OF JUSTICE
The concept of justice is the most important principle of Plato’s political philosophy. The sub-title of
the Republic, ‘Concerning Justice’ shows the extra ordinary importance which Plato attached to
justice. Plato saw in justice the only practical remedy of saving his beloved Athens from decay and
ruin. The main argument in the republic is a sustained search after the location and nature of
justice. He discovers and locates the principle of justice with the help of his ideal state.
An ideal state for Plato possessed the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and
justice. It would have wisdom because its rulers were persons of knowledge, courage because its
warriors were brave, self discipline because of the harmony that pervaded the societal matrix due to
a common agreement as to who ought to rule, and finally, justice of doing one’s job for which one
was naturally filled without interfering with others. For Plato, the state was ideal, of which justice
was the reality. Justice was the principle on which the state had to be founded and a contribution
made towards the excellence of the city.
According to Plato, justice does not consist in mere adherence to the laws, for it is based on the
inner nature of human spirit, it is also to the triumph of the stronger over the weaker, for it protects

the weaker against the stronger. A just state, Plato argues, is achieved with an eye to the good of
the whole. In a just state or society, the rulers and military, the producers all do what they ought to
do. In such a society the rulers are wise, the soldiers are brave, and the producers exercise self-
control or temperance.
For Plato, justice is a moral concept. As Prof: Ernest Barker has rightly pointed out; justice for Plato
is at once a part of human virtue and the bond which joins men together in the states. It makes man
good and make him social" A similar view has been expressed by a Prof. Sabine when he wrote
that for Plato’ “Justice is a bound which holds the society together”.
DIFFERENT MEANINGS AND THEORIES OF JUSTICE
Plato in his masterpiece, the Republic, reviews the then prevailing theories of justice representing
various stages in the development of conceptions of justice and morality and finally gives own
interpretations and meaning. The text opens with a discussion between Socrates and cephalous on
the subject of old age and wealth. Cephalous, old and prosperous, pointed out that wealth by itself
did not make one happy but provided comforts that made life easy. It is enabled one to lead a good
life and to do what was morally wrong. Cephalous defined justice as telling the truth, being honest in
word and deed and paying one’s debts. Socrates dismissed the argument effortlessly by pointing
out that is some cases it might be harmful to speak the truth or return one’s belongings, through
examples like returning weapons to a mad person, or telling the truth when it was better to conceal
it. He did not show that honesty in word and deed was not justice but rather that such honesty could
be harmful.
By altering the definition provided by Cephalous, Polemarchus pointed out that justice means
giving each man is due’ or what was fitting’, In short justice was doing the right thing which he
qualified to mean doing good to friends might also involve acts like stealing and telling a lie. Second
the idea of being good friends and bad to enemies was difficult to apply, because a person could
make mistakes about one’s friends and enemies. A friend might not actually be a friend in reality.
Moreover, a person who could do the maximum help could also do the maximum harm. Third, a
person should not harm anyone because those who get injured become been more unjust. Justice
was human excellence; a just person could not harm anybody, including the self.
Through a series of analogies, Socrates showed the justice was not the advantage of the stronger,
for the ruler’s duty was to serve the interests of the people. A ruler’s position was similar to that of a
doctor, teacher or shepherd. By defining justice as the interest of the stronger, Thrasymachus
earned a place in the history of political theory.
There is another theory of justice advocated by two brothers - Glaucon and Adeimantus. Glaucon
held the view that justice is in the interest of the weaker and that it is artificial in so far as it is the
product of customs and conventions. Plato saw limitations in Glaucon’s theory by describing justice
as natural and universal as against Glaucon’s notion of it as artificial and product of conventions and
customs.
Platonic justice has two aspects - individual and social. According to Plato, every individual was a
functional unit, assigned a particular task with clear cut obligations and privileges, which one was
expected to perform diligently and meticulously. William Bernstein wrote in the discussion of justice,
all elements of Plato’s political philosophy are contained, In his theory of justice the relations of man
to nature, to the polis, and to his fellow men from an architectonic whole.
Plato explained his arguments for differing individual capabilities with the help of the theory of three
classes and three souls, an idea borrowed from Pythagoros. He pointed out that every human soul
had three qualities: rational, ‘ spirit and appetite with justice as the fourth virtue balancing and
harmonizing the other three qualities. In each soul one of these qualities would be the predominant
faculties. Individuals in whom the rational faculty was predominant would constitute the ruling class
and the virtue of such a soul was wisdom. This soul, a lover of learning had the power to
comprehend the idea of good. Those in whom spirit was the predominant quality were the
auxiliaries or warriors and the virtue of such souls was courage, implying the ability to hold on to
one’s convictions and beliefs in adverse times. Together the rulers and soldiers would constitute the
guardian class.
Individuals whose souls were appetitive exhibited a fondness for material things. They were lovers
of gain and money. They were the artisans, the producing class. The quality of such an appetitive
soul was temperance, though Plato did not see temperance as an exclusive quality of the artisan
class. Though Plato took into account the role of spirit and appetite in human behavior, he was
convinced that reason must ultimately control and direct emotions and passions.
Thus justice in the state meant that the three social classes (rulers, warriors and producers)
performed the deliberative and governing, defense and production without interfering with the
functions of others. Justice was “one class, one duty; every man, one work. Prof. Ernest Barker has
defined the Platonic theory of justice when he wrote that justice means ‘will to concentrate on one’s
own sphere of duty and not to meddle with the sphere of others".
According to Plato, the justice of the state is the citizen’s sense of duty. This conception of justice
goes against individualism because a man must not think of himself as an isolated unit with
personal desire. Plato’s justice does not embody a conception of rights but of duties though it is
identical with true liberty. It is the true condition the individual and of the state and the ideal state is
the embodiment of justice. The state is the reality of which justice is the idea. According to Prof:
Sabine, Plato visualized society as a system of services in which each member both gives and
receives. What the state takes cognizance, of is this mutual exchange and what it tries to arrange is
the most adequate satisfaction of needs and the most harmonious inter change of services
Platonic justice leads to functional specialization. From the point of view of society justice means
self control on the of various classes of society which makes each class mind its own function and
not interfere with the functions of others. It also makes various members of each class stick to their
own allotted functions and responsibilities within the calls and not interferes with the function of
other individuals in the some class.
CRITICISMS
Several criticisms have been leveled against Platonic theory of justice. Platonic doctrine of justice is
based on self - control and self abnegation of the individual in the interest of society. It leads to
functional specialization. It ignores the evils of functional specialization which does not sufficiently

realize and properly provide for the whole of human personality.lt stunts the growth of the individual
and there - by impoverished the society.
Platonic theory of justice divides the state into three separate classes and is not applicable to
modern states with large population and numerous interests and sections of society. His division of
society into separate classes would lead to a class state with class consciousness and privileges.
Further, concentration of political power in the hands of philosophers is likely to lead to
totalitarianism.
EDUCATION
Plato’s republic is not merely an essay on Justice. It is one of the greatest treatises on education to
be ever written. The main objective of Plato’s philosophy was to bring about reforms in the Greek city
– states. The object of the Republic was to locate and thereafter establish justice in the ideal state
and his scheme of education is the spiritual remedy for the realization of justice. According to Plato,
social education is a means to social justice. It is; therefore, correct to say that education for Plato
has been a solution to all the important questions during his period.
The ideal state ruled by the philosopher king was made possible through an elaborate and
rigorous scheme of education. The state was wholly constructed around the scheme of education, in
the belief that if the state performed its task of conducting and supervising education properly, Plato
looked to education as an instrument of moral reform, for it would mould and transform human souls.
Education inculcated the right values of selfless duty towards all, and was therefore positive. It
helped in the performance of one’s functions in society and in attaining fulfillment. Thus, education
was the key to the realisation of the new social order. As Prof.: Ernest Barker has rightly pointed out;
Plato’s scheme of education brings the soul into that environment which in each stage of its growth
is best suited for its development.
Plato attached more importance to education that either Aristotle or other Greek thinkers did.
He clearly saw that education was more than acquiring of basic facts and ideas in one’s childhood
and adolescence but he was the first to propose an elaborate system of adult training and education.
Following his teacher Socrates, Plato had a belief in the dictum that virtue is knowledge and for
making people virtuous, he made education a very powerful instrument. Plato believed that
education builds man’s character and it is therefore a necessary condition for extracting man’s
natural faculties in order to develop his personalities. According to Plato, education promotes justice
and enables a man to fulfill his duties. Education has the twin aim of enabling the individual to realize
himself and of adjusting him harmoniously and usefully to society.
In his masterpiece, The Republic, Plato has recommended a state controlled compulsory and
comprehensive scheme of education meant for both men and women. He wants that deduction must
itself provide the needed means, must see that citizens must actually get the training they require
and rust be sure that the education supplied is consonant with the harmony and well being of the
state. As Prof.: Sabine has rightly pointed out Plato’s plan is, therefore, for a state controlled system
of compulsory education. His educational scheme falls naturally into two parts, the elementary
education, which includes the training of the young person’s up to the age of 20 and culminating in

the beginning of military services and the higher education intended for those selected persons of
both sexes who are to be members of the two ruling classes and extending from the age of 20 to 35.
Plato considered the state as an educational institution capable of providing the benefits of education
to each and every student in his ideal state. Plato’s scheme of education had both the Athenian and
the Spartan influence. Impressed by the result of state - controlled education in Sparta, Plato
duplicated the same for Athens. An important draw back in the Athenian curriculum was the lack of
training in martial arts that would prepare the individual from childhood to the service of the interests
of the state. Plato attempted to balance the two contrasting models. The education system drew
from Athens values of creativity, excellence and individual achievement, which it tried to integrate
with that of Sparta, namely civic training. Its content was typically Athenian and its purpose was
dominated by the end of moral and intellectual cultivation. The curriculum of the elementary
education was divided into two parts, gymnastics for training the body and music for training the
mind, The elementary education was to be imparted to all the three classes. But after the age of
twenty, those selected for higher positions in the guardian class between twenty and thirty five. The
guardians were to be constituted of the auxiliary class, and the ruling class. These two classes were
to have a higher doze of gymnasium and music, greater doze of gymnastics or the auxiliaries, and
greater doze of music for the rulers. The higher education of the two classes was, in purpose,
professional and for his curriculum Plato chose the only scientific studies – mathematics, astronomy
and logic. Before the two classes could get on to their jobs, Plato suggested a further education till
the age of about fifty, mostly practical in nature.
Platonic scheme of education was progressive and systematic. Its characteristics can be
summarized as follows.
1. His educational scheme was state controlled compulsory and graded one moving from lower
to higher levels of learning process.
2. It aimed at attaining the physical, moral, mental and intellectual development of human
personality.
3. It is a graded process which consisted of different levels and stages starting from 6 to 50
years.
4. His scheme was particularly aimed at producing philosopher kings, the rulers in his ideal
state;
5. His educational plan aimed at preparing the rulers for administrative statesmanship, soldiers
for military skill, and producers for material productivity and finally.
6. His educational plans sought to bring a balance between the individual needs and social
requirements.
For Plato, the educational systems serves both to undergrid and sustain the idea of political order
and to provide a ladder, so to speak up which those who have the capacity can climb to escape the
contingencies and limitations of political life. These two purposes, according to Plato, are not
contradictory. Rather they support and sustain each other.

Plato’s scheme of education was undemocratically devised in so far as it ignored the producing
class completely .It was limited in nature and was restrictive in extent by laying more emphasis on
mathematics and logic than on literature. The whole plan was unexpectedly and unduly expensive
. It is further criticized that Platonic scheme of education will create an ideal philosopher more than
an ideal man of action. Plato does not sufficiently realize that education should be relative to the
character of the individual.
COMMUNISM
According to Plato, justice could be achieved by spiritual and material means. While education is the
remedial measure for the achievement of justice through spiritual means communism is the solution
through material means. While education was designed to create the proper environment for the
nurturing and development of the human soul, the communism tried to eliminate all the negativities
that obstructed the proper growth of the individual.
Platonic theory of communism has two parts - communism of family otherwise known as
communism of wives and children, and communism of property. If his theory of communism of
property is a logical corollary of his conception of justice, his theory of communism of families was
a logical corollary of his views on communism of property.
Plato’s ideal state consisted of three classes, those of the rulers, of the auxiliaries, and of the
producers, each class doing its own assigned duties and responsibilities with utmost sincerity and
devotion. The guardians are to live a life very different from that of the producers, one in which they
must forgo all that makes life for the ordinary man worth living. Plato believed that justice would be
ushered in if the ruling class does away with property, for property represents the elements of
appetite, and to do away with properly demands the communism of families. As Ernest Barker has
rightly pointed out the abolition of family life among the guardians is thus, inevitably a corollary of
their renunciation of private property. ’ According to Prof. Dunning “primary property and family
relationships appear to be the chief sources of dissension in every community, neither is to have
recognition in the perfect state”. Anxiety for one’s children is a form of self-seeking more insidious
than the desire for property.
Plato abolished private family life and property for the ruling class for they concouraged nepotism,
favoritism particularism, factionalism and other corrupt practices commonly found among the rulers.
Politics was to promote common food and interest of the state. Plato thereby established a high
standard for the rulers. He proposed that the members of the guardian class live together in a
common barrack. The life of the guardian class would be in accordance with the rule followed among
the Greeks that friends have all things in common. In the Republic Plato devoted greater space and
consideration to communism of family than to property. This was mainly because he had perturbed
by the negative emotions of hatred, selfishness and the envy that the family encouraged. Plato
believed that conventional marriage led to women’s subordination, subjugation and seclusion. He
rejected the idea of marriage as a spiritual union based on love and mutual respect. However,
marriage was necessary to ensure the reproduction and continuation of the human race. He,
therefore, advocated temporary sexual union for the purpose of bearing the children. He relieved
women of child caring responsibilities. Once children were born, they would be taken care of by the

state controlled unserious, which would be equipped with well trained nurses. Except for the
philosopher ruler, none would know the parentage of these children.
Plato’s argument for communism of property and family was that the unity of the state demands their
abolition. Prof. Sabine wrote thus: “The unity of the state is to secure; property and family stand in
the way; therefore, property and marriage must go”.
COMPARISON WITH MODERN COMMUNISM.
There are similarities and difference between Platonic communism and modern communism. Both
are alike in the sense that both ignore the individuality of the citizens and are based on the
supremacy of the state which absorbs the individual. Both are totalitarian covering various aspects of
the life of the individual. Both are based on the ignorance of the essentials of human nature and
human instincts. Further, both are calculated to eliminate unregulated economic competition based
on individualism. Platonic communism and modern communism meant to promote political unity and
social harmony and to develop the sense of social service.
There are some fundamental differences between Platonic communism and modern communism.
Plato’s communism has a political objective - an economic solution of a political ailment, Plato’s
communism is limited to only two upper classes – the rulers and the auxiliaries while Marx’s
communism applies to the whole society. As Prof. C.C. Maxey has rightly pointed out, Plato’s basis
of communism is material temptation and it’s nature is individualist while Marx’ basis is the growth of
social evils, which result from the accumulation of private property in addition to the above
differences, Platonic communism is opposed to modern communism on some other points. Plato’s
communism was calculated to prevent concentration of economic and political power in the same
hands; modern communism gives political power to the producing class. Plato’s communism
involved abolition of private family life and private property; modern communism intends to abolish
private property only.
Criticisms
Plato’s theory of communism has been denounced by many from his disciple Aristotle down to Karl
Popper. Aristotle criticizes Plato for having ignored the natural instinct of acquisition, making the
scheme partial in so far as excluding the producing class from it was declaring it ascetic and
aristocratic, surrendering all the best for the guardians. Others, including Karl Popper, condemn
Plato’s scheme of communism on numerous grounds. The following are some of the criticisms
leveled against Platonic communism.
1. It is doubtful if communism of families would bring greater degree of unity by making the
guardians a single family.
2. Communism of wives and children was found to create confusion if not disorder - one female
would be wife of all the guardians and one male, the husband of all the females
3. Common children would tend to be neglected, for every body’s child would be nobody’s baby.
4. It is also doubtful if the state controlled mating would ever be workable; it would rather reduce
men and women to the levels of mere animals by suggesting temporary marital relationship.

5. Plato’s communism of family suggests a system of marriage which is neither monogamy nor
bigamy, nor polygamy, nor polyandry; and finally.
6. Plato’s theory of communism is too idealistic, too utopian, too imaginary and accordingly far
away from the realities of life. Some critics have gone to the extent of criticizing Platonic
communism as half communism’.
STATE AND GOVERNMENT
In all his works on political theory, there is a strong case, which Plato builds in favor of an Omni -
competent state. Living is one thing but living well is another and perhaps a different thing altogether.
According to Plato, it is the duty of the state or govt. to help people live a complete life. The problem
which Plato addressed was not having best a govt. could be created but how best a govt. could be
installed. His model state is an Ideal state ruled by an ideal ruler known as Philosopher King.
In his masterpiece, namely the Republic, Plato constructs his ideal state on the analogy between the
individual and the state. According to Plato, human soul consists of three elements of reason, spirit
and appetite, functioning within proper bounds. The state must reflect such a constitution, for the
state was a magnified individual, the virtues and the constitution of the two being the same. This
identification for the state with the individual makes Plato present a number of false analogies
between the two.
Plato’s Ideal state comprises or three classes, namely the ruling class, the warriors and the
producing class. The main objective of his ideal state is good life and Plato let his imagination pursue
this good which results in the portrayal of a utopia. Plato’s portrayal of an ideal state may be
compared to an artist’s portrayal of an ideal landscape. His ideal state is an ideal in the sense that it
is an exhibition of what a state ought to be. The ideal state was a reflection of man’s best and
noblest self and provided the medium in which a man found his best self. Plato believed that man
found his perfection only in the ideal state.
Plato builds his ideal state in three successive stages. In the first stage, Plato believes that men and
women are different in degree only and not in kind. Hence they should be given same educational
facilities and should partake in the same public functions. In the second stage Plato advocates the
abolition of the family on the basis of communism of property and wives among the two upper
classes. In the third stage he introduced the rule of philosophy.
Plato’s ideal state is hierarchical in composition and functions. At the head of the ideal state is a
philosopher ruler highly qualified people capable of ruling the country either fear or favour. In order to
ensure a steady supply of philosopher rulers, Plato advocated a state controlled compulsory scheme
of education meant for the children belonging to all the three classes of people. The communism of
family and property among the two upper classes was meant to keep them out of economic and
world temptations and ambitions so that they could concentrate on their duty to the state. The other
features of the ideal state were functional specialization, equality of men and women and censorship
of art.
Having outlined the details of an ideal state, Plato examined other types of regimes, accounting for
their decline and decay. He listed four types of governments namely timocracy, oligarchy,

democracy and despotism or tyranny. The first of these forms of state is timocracy "based on
ambition and love of honor and war as represented by Crete and Sparta "so commonly admired".
The second is oligarchy or Plutocracy the rule of the wealthy, the third is democracy, the rule of the
people, the fourth, and most important imperfect is despotism or tyranny, which develops inevitably
out of the anarchy of the democratic state. In each instance, Plato correlates a type of human
character with the form of govt. in which it is most reflected:" Constitutions cannot come out of sticks
and stones, they must result from the preponderance of certain characters which draw the rest of the
community in their wake".
In his classification of forms of state, Plato considered democracy the second worst type of
government. His description of life in a democratic society may be overdrawn, but remains to this
day the most incisive critique of democracy.
Democracy was characterized by license, wastefulness, insolence, anarchy and democratic man
gave more importance to his desire and appetites. Quantity rather than quality was the main
criterion honoring all values on an equal basis.
In the Statesman, Plato divided the states into lawful and unlawful states, a classification that
Aristotle adopted when he spoke of good and perverted forms of government in his Politics. For
Plato, there were three law abiding states, and their corresponding corrupt and lawless states. The
rule of one yielding monarchy and tyranny, the rule of a few, aristocracy and oligarchy, and the rule
of many included moderate and extreme democracy. For the first time, Plato conceded two kinds of
democracy, and made it the best of the lawless states, though the west of law - abiding states.
Both forms of democracy were better than oligarchy and even monarchy, tacitly admitting the
importance of popular participation and consent in the polity.
An assessment of Plato’s Political Philosophy
Plato’s political philosophy, which emerges from his writings, has its special importance in the
history of western political theory. Plato was the first systematic political theorist and a study of the
western philosophy of tradition begins with his masterpiece, the Republic, Jowet rightly describes
Plato as father of philosophy, politics and literary idealism.
Plato’s contribution to the western political thought is without any parallel. He was given it a
direction, a basis and a vision. Political idealism is Plato’s gift to western political philosophy. He
innovated novel ideas and integrated them skillfully in a political scheme. His radicalism lies in the
fact that his rulers are rulers without comforts and luxuries possessed by men of property. Plato’s
attempt in the Republic is to portray a perfect model of an ideal order. Plato was the first to allow
women to become rulers and legislators. His scheme of collective households, temporary
marriages and common childcare were accepted as necessary condition for the emancipation of
women by the socialist of the 18th and 19th centuries. The whole bent of Plato’s Political thought
was the welfare and development of the community.
Aristotle (384 -322 BC)

In the history of political philosophy no one has surpassed Aristotle in encyclopedic interest
and accomplishment. He is regarded as the father of political science as he was the first to analyse,

critically and systematically the then existing constitutions and classify them. His classification of
constitutions is still used in understanding constitutions comparatively. He regarded political science
as the master science, for it studied human beings in a political society implying that a human being
can lead a meaningful life only as a member of a state.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle was not an Athenian by birth. He was born in Stagira, then a small Greek
colony close to the borders of the Macedonian Kingdome. He was a disciple of Plato and
subsequently taught Alexander and then established his own school, the Lyceum. Aristotle’s
relationship of Plato was similar to J.S.Mills’ relationship with Jeremy Bentham as both Aristotle and
J S Mill repudiated major portions of the teachings of their master- Plato and Bentham respectively.
The difference between Plato and Aristotle is the difference between philosophy and science. Plato
was the father of political philosophy, Aristotle, the father of political science, the former is a
philosopher the later is a scientist, former follows deductive methodology, the latter, an inductive
one.
Although not an Athenian, Aristotle lived in Athens for more than half of his life, first as a student at
Plato’s Academy for nearly twenty years and later as the master of his own institution, the Lyceum,
for about 12 years. From 335 BC till his death (322 BC) he devoted himself to research, teaching
and administrative duties in Lyceum. Lyceum was a public leisure centre, where Aristotle lectured to
his chosen students in the mornings and to the general public in the evenings.
Aristotle is said to have written about 150 philosophic treaties. His works can be classified under
three heading:
1. Dialogues and other works of a popular character;
2. Collection of facts and materials from scientific treatment,
3. Systematic works. Among his writings of a popular nature. On the polity of the Athenians is
the interesting one. The works on the second group include 200 titles, most in fragments. The
systematic treatises of the third, group are marked by a plainness of style. Aristotle’s political
theory is found mainly in the politics although there are references of his political thought in the
Nichomachean Ethics. In the words of Prof. William Ebenstiein, the “politics lacks the fire and
poetic imagery of the Republic, but it is more systematic and analytical and after twenty three
hundred years it is still an introductory text book to the entire fields of political science.’ In his
writings Aristotle showed much regard for popular opinions and current practices, for he was
essentially a realist philosopher. His works are really on justification of existing institutions like
family, state and slavery or is calculated to suggest remedies for the ills of the body politics of the
city states.
Theory of state
Aristotle believes that man is, by nature and necessity, a social animal and he who is unable to live
in society must be either a god or beast. He finds the origin of the state in the innate desire of an
individual to satisfy his economic needs and racial instincts. For the realisation of this desire the
male and female on the one hand and the master and slave on the other, come together, live
together and form a family, i.e., a household which has its moral and social use. It is in the

household that the three elements originate and develop which are essential to the building of a
state, namely fellowship, political organisation and justice.
Aristotle opens the politics with two important ideas: the state is a community and that it is the
highest of all communities, ‘which embraces all the rest, aims at good in greater degree than any
other, and at the highest good’ the first thesis came naturally to a Greek of the classical period: his
polis was city state with a small area and population. Aristotle may not have been the first to
consider the state a community, but he was the first to define it clearly as such, and thus he laid the
foundation for the organic conception of the state, one of the two major types into which all political
theories of the state may roughly be divided.
According to Aristotle, sate is a natural community, an organism with all the attributes of a living
being. Aristotle conceives of the state as natural in two ways. First, he briefly delineates the
evolution of social institutions from the family through the village to the city state; in the historical
sense, the state is the natural and final stage in the growth of human relations. However, the state
is also considered by Aristotle to be actual in a logical and philosophical sense: “The state is by
nature clearly prior to the family and the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part”.
Aristotle maintains that the state is not only a community but it is the highest community aiming at
the highest good. The family is the first form of association, lowest in the chain of social evolution
and lowest on the rung of values, because it is established by nature for the supply of men’s every
day wants. The village is the second form of association, genetically more complex than the family,
and aiming at something more than, the supply of daily needs. The third and highest in terms of
value and purpose: whereas family and village exist essentially for the preservation of life and
comforts of companionship, the state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life
only, and political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship It is
clear from the above observations that the state is the highest form of association, not only in terms
of the social and institutional value, but interns of man’s own nature.
Aristotle believed that man was essentially good and the function of the state was to develop his
good faculties into a habit of good action. Aristotle saw a good deal of identity between the
individual and the state. Like the individual, the state must show the virtues of courage, self-control
and justice. The function of the state was the promotion of good life among its citizens and,
therefore, the state was the spiritual association into a moral life As Prof. William Ebenstein has
rightly pointed out his (Aristotle’s ) “is a conception of moral sovereignty rather than of legal
sovereignty”.
SLAVERY
The institution of slavery has been criticised by many and defended by few Aristotle was one of its
strong defenders. Aristotle justifies slavery, which in fact was the order of the day. He wrote in the
Politics thus: “For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but
expedient; from the hour of their birth, same are marked out for subjection other for rule”. In fact
Aristotle justifies slavery on grounds of expediency.
While discussing the origin of the state and family, Aristotle mentions the institution of
slavery. He finds slavery essential to a household and defends it as natural and, therefore, moral.
A slave is a living possession of his master and is an instrument of a action. A man cannot lead a
good life without slaves any more than he can produce good music without instruments. Men differ
from each other in their physical and intellectual fitness. Aristotle justifies slavery on the grounds
that there is a natural inequality between men.
Aristotle assumes that nature is universally ruled by the contrast of the superior and inferior: man is
superior to the animals, the male to the female, the soul to the body, reason to passion. In all these
divisions it is just that the superior rule over the inferior, and such a rule is to the advantage of both.
Among men, there are those whose business is to use their body, and who can do nothing better’
and they are by nature slaves. Slavery is not only natural it is necessary as well. If the masters do
not tyrannise over the slave, slavery is advantageous to both the master and the slave. Slavery is
essential for the master of the household because, without slaves he has to do manual work which
incapacitates him for civic duties.
Aristotle was realistic enough to see that many were slaves by law rather than nature, particularly
those who were reduced to slavery by conquest a custom widely practiced in the in the wars of
antiquity. He concedes to slaves the mental ability of apprehending the rational actions and orders
of their master but denies them the ability of acting rationally on their own initiative.
CRITICISMS
Aristotle’s defence of slavery sounds very unconvincing and unnatural. He does not give reliable
and fixed criteria for the determination of who is and who is not a natural law. Aristotle’s assertion
that some women are born to rule and others born to obey would reduce the society into two parts
arbitrarily. Thus Aristotle’s definition of slaves would reduce domestic servants and women in
backward countries to the position of slaves. Karl Popper in his work “Open Society and its
Enemies has criticized Aristotliean an doctrine of slavery when he wrote thus:” ‘Aristotle’s views
were indeed reactionary as can be best seen from the fact that he repeatedly finds it necessary to
defend them against the doctrine that no one is a slave by nature, and further from his own
testimony to the anti slavery tendencies of the Athenian democracy”.
CITIZENSHIP
Aristotle’s conservative viewpoint is clearly expressed in his conception of citizenship. Aristotle

defined a state as a collective body of citizens. Citizenship was not to be determined by residence
since the resident aliens and slaves also shared a common residence with citizens but were not
citizens. He defines citizen as a person who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial
administration of any sate. Representative government was unknown to Aristotle because the
Greek city- state was governed directly by its citizens. A citizen also enjoyed constitutional rights
under the system of public law.
For Aristotle a citizen was one who shared power in polis, and unlike Plato, did not distinguish
between “an active ruling group and a politically passive community”. Aristotle stipulated that the
young and the old could not be citizens, for one was immature and the other infirm. He did not
regard women as citizens, for they lacked the deliberative faculty and the leisure to understand the
working of politics. A good citizen would have the intelligence and the ability to rule and be ruled.
Aristotle prescribed a good citizen as someone who could live in harmony with the constitution and
had sufficient leisure time to devote himself to the tasks and responsibilities of citizenship. A good
citizen would possess virtue or moral goodness that would help in realising a selfless and
cooperative civic life. In the words of William Ebenstein, “Aristotle’s idea of citizenship is that of the
economically independent gentleman who has enough experience, education and leisure to devote
him to active citizenship, for citizen must not lead the life of mechanics or tradesmen, for such life is
inimical to virtue. Thus he regarded citizenship as a bond forged by the intimacy of participation in
public affairs.
Aristotle makes an important distinction between the ‘parts’ of the state and its “necessary
conditions”. Only those who actively share or have the means and leisure to share in the
government of the state are its components or integral part. All the others are merely the necessary
conditions who provide the material environment within which the active citizens freed from menial
tasks, can function .
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Like Plato, Aristotle believed that justice is the very essence of the state and that no polity can
endure for a long time unless it is founded on a right scheme of justice. According to him, justice is
virtue, complete virtue, and the embodiment of all goodness. It is not the same thing as virtue, but it
is virtue and virtue in action. Thus Aristotle makes it clear that ‘the goodness in the sphere of
politics is justice, and justice contains what tends to promote the common interest.”
Aristotle believes that justice saves the states from destruction; it makes the states and political life
pure and healthy. For Aristotle, justice is either general or particular. According to Aristotle, general
justice is complete goodness It is complete in the fullest sense, because it is the exercise of
complete goodness not only in himself but also towards his neighbours. Particular justice is a part of
complete or general justice.
Particular justice has two sub varieties, namely, distributive and corrective justice.
Corrective justice is mainly concerned with voluntary commercial transactions like sale, hire,
furnishing of security, etc: and other things like aggression on property and life, honor and freedom.
Distributive justice consists in proper allocation to each person according to his worth. This type of
justice relates primarily but not exclusively to political privileges.
From the point of view of distributive justice, each type of political organisation, its own standard of
worth and , therefore, of distributive justice. Distributive justice assigns to every man his due
according to his contributions to the society. Distributive justice is identifiable with proportionate
equality.
Aristotle’s concept of distributive Justice does not apply to modern conditions. Based on the notion
of award of officers and honors in proportion to a man’s’ contribution to society, it could apply to a
small city states and is not applicable to modern sovereign states with huge population. Thus his
theory distributive justice is far away from the reality of the modern world.

EDUCATION
Like his master Plato, Aristotle was very keen on education. The end of the state, according to him,
is good life of the individuals for which education is the best instrument. Education was meant to
prepare the individual for membership of the state and as such had a political as well as intellectual
aim.
According to Aristotle, education must be adapted to the constitution of the state and should be
calculated to train man in a certain type of character suitable to the state. To him, the building of a
particular type of character was more important than the imparting of knowledge and therefore
proper educational authority was the states and not the private individuals. Aristotle was in favour of
setting of state controlled educational institutions. However, Aristotle’s view on education was less
comprehensive and systematic compared to his master, Plato.
Classification of government
On the basis of his study of 158 constitutions, Aristotle has given a classification which became a
guide for all the subsequent philosophers who tried to classify government. He classified
governments on a twofold basis namely,
1. The end of the state and
2. The number of persons who hold or share sovereign power. This basis enables us to
distinguish between the pure and corrupt forms of government. This because the true end of the
state is the perfection of its members and the degree of devotion to this end is the criterion to judge
whether a government is pure or corrupt.
The classification of government is as under:
Pure Form Corrupt Form
1. Monarchy- with supreme virtue as its Tyranny – representing

guiding principle force, selfishness
2 ‘ Aristocracy- representing a mixture of Oligarchy –representing
virtue and wealth the greed of wealth
Democracy –
3. Polity-representing martial and medium
representing the principle
virtues, power resting with the middle class
of equality with power in
people
the hands of the poor
In the table given above, monarchy represents the rule of a monarch for common good with
tyranny as its perversion. According to Aristotle, monarchy is the pure form of government when the
monarch rules for the benefits of the people without any discrimination. Of the three true forms
Aristotles holds monarchy to be the most ideal kind of govt. Aristotle’s deep sympathy for monarchy
is to be understood in the light of his relations with the rising Macedonian monarchy.
Aristocracy is no where described in the Politics systematically, perhaps because the
problem of aristocracy and democracy was not of such practical importance as that of monarchy.

Aristotle defines democracy as a government formed of the best men absolutely, and not merely of
men who are relatively, that is in relation to changing circumstances and constitutions. The
perverted form of aristocracy is oligarchy in which government by wealthy is carried on for their own
benefit rather than for that of the whole state. Whereas merit and virtue the distinctive qualities to
be considered in selecting the rulers in an aristocracy, wealth is the basis of selection in an
oligarchy.
The third true form of state is polity or constitutional government. Aristotle defines polity as the state
that the citizens at large administer for the common interest. Constitutional government is a
compromise between the two principles of freedom and wealth the attempt to unite the freedom of
the poor and the wealth of the rich, without giving either principle exclusive predominance. The
degenerate form of constitutional government is democracy and defined it as a system in which the
poor rule. It is government by the poor, and for the poor only just as tyranny is government by one
for his own benefit and oligarchy government by the wealthy few for their class benefit.
REVOLUTION
The search for stability through polity made Aristotle examine the causes for instability,
change and revolution and prescribe remedies against unnecessary and incessant change. In
book v of the politics Aristotle discussed one of the most important problems which made it a hand
book for all state men for all time to come. The analytical and the empirical mind of Aristotle gives
numerous causes of revolution and suggest remedies to overcome them. As Prof. Ebenstein has
rightly pointed out Politics of Aristotle is more a book on the art of government than a systematic
exposition of political philosophy. In Aristotle analysis the evils that were prevalent in the Geek cities
and the defects in the political systems and gives practical suggestions as to the best way to avoid
threatening danagers.
Aristotle points out that there are varying degrees of revolution. A revolution many take the
form of a change of constitution a state or the revolutionaries may try to grasp political power
without changing the constitution. A revolution may be directed against not the entire system of
government but a particular institution or set of person in the state. A revolution may be
completing armed or peaceful and personal or impersonal.
In order to diagnose a revolution we must consider the temper of the revolutionaries and
their motives and the causes and occasions of revolution. Aristotle discussed general causes of
revolution and then looked into the reasons why individual constitutions changed. Unlike Plato,
Aristotle perceived multiple reasons for revolutions rather than a regime’s prominent deficiency. He
placed greater responsibility on the rulers to ensure stability and justice.
Aristotle classifies the causes of revolution under two groups general and particular causes.
The general causes of revolutions were broadly categorised into three.
1. Psychological motives or the state of mind.
2. The objectives in mind;

3. The occasions that gave rise to political upheaval and mutual strife

The psychological factors were the desire for equality in an oligarchy and inequality in a
democracy .The objectives in mind included profit, honor , insolence ,fear superiority in some form,
contempt disproportionate increase in some part of the state, election intrigues, willful negligence,
neglect of insignificant changes, fear of opposites and dissimilarity of component parts of the state.
The occasions that give rise to revolutionary changes were insolence, desire for profit and honour,
superiority, fear, contempt, and disproportionate increase in one part or element of the state.
The particular causes were analyzed in each constitution. Aristotle states that “poverty is the parent
of revolution and crime” and that when there is no middle class and the poor greatly exceed in
number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end. In democracy the most important
cause of revolution is the unprincipled character of the popular leaders. Demagogues attack the
rich, individually or collectively, so as to provide them to forcibly resist and provide the emergence
of oligarchy. The causes of overthrow of oligarchies can be internal as when a group within the
class in power becomes more influential or external, by the mistreatment of the masses by the
governing class. In aristocracies few, people share in honour. When the number of people
benefiting become smaller or when disparting between rich and poor becomes wider revolution is
caused in a monarchy, sedition was usually due to fear, contempt, desire for fame, insults, hatred
and desire by neighboring states to extend their boundaries.
Remedies to prevent revolution
Aristotle has suggested a number of useful and practical remedies for preventing revolutions. The
first essential remedy are to inculcate the spirit of obedience to law, especially in small matters and
to watch the beginning of change in the constitution. Aristotle suggested that too much power
should not be allowed to concentrate in the hands of one man or one class of men and various
classes in the state should be treated with consideration. Great political offices in the state should
be outside the reach of unkind strangers and aliens, holders of offices should not be able to make
private gain. Public administration, particularly financial administration, should be subjected to
public scrutiny. Further, offices and honors should be awarded on considerations of distributive
justice and no class of citizens should have a monopoly of political power. Again the higher offices
in the state should be distributed only on considerations of loyalty to the constitution administrative
capacity and integrity of character, but each citizen must have his due.
Democracy
Aristotle believes that democracy is characterised by twin principles of freedom and majority -rule.
Aristotle was not opposed to democracy in the same measures as Plato was. According to him
democracy is a form of government in which supreme power is in the hands of freemen. He
believed that the aggregates virtue and ability of the mass of the people was greater than the virtue
and ability of a part of the population. It the mass of the people do not understand the technicalities
of a administration, they have the commonsense of appointing right administrators and legislators
and of checking any misbehavior on the part of the latter. Aristotle’s democracy means aristo-
democracy of the free citizens because the large body of slaves and aliens can have no share in
the government of the day. Direct democracy is possible only in a small city state Aristotle
condemns only the extreme form of democracy namely mobocracy.

Assessment
Aristotle’s Politics has served as a foundation work for the whole western tradition. His
encyclopedic mind encompassed practically all the branches of human knowledge. Unlike Plato’s
Republic, Aristotle’s works were measured in thinking and analysis, reflecting the mind of a scientist
rather than that of a philosopher. He regarded as the father of political science because he was
perhaps the first political thinker to analyse political institutions and behaviour systematically and
scientifically. He considered man as a social animal and the state as a natural organisation which
exists not only for life but for the sake of good life. He was a great pioneer in political science and
no discussion is ever complete without a reference to his brilliant insights and method of analysis.

MODULE II
MACHIAVELLI
MACHIAVELLI is known as the father of modern political science. He is a transitional figure

standing midway between the medieval and modern political thought. He was a historian who laid
the foundations of a new science of politics by integrating contemporary history with ancient past.
He commanded a sinister reputation as no other thinker in the annals of political theory. The initial
reaction to Machiavelli’s writing was one of shock and he himself was denounced as an inventor of
the devil. This was because Machiavelli sanctioned the use of deception, cruelty, force, violence
and the like for achieving the desired political ends. Spinoza regarded him as a friend of the people
for having exposed the Prince. Montesquieu regarded him as a lover of liberty, an image that
emerged in the Discourses and not from the Prince.
Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469. He was the third child in a family that was neither
rich nor aristocratic, but well connected with the city’s famed humanistic circles. Florence was
economically prosperous but suffered a long period of civil strife and political disorder. His father
Berando, a civil lawyer, held several important public appointments. Besides his legal practice,
Bernado also received rents from his land, making his family financially comfortable’ Bernado
took considerable interest in the education of his son. At the age of 29, Machiavelli entered the
public service in the government of Florence. Later he was sent on a diplomatic mission to several
foreign countries where he acquired firsthand experience of Political and diplomatic matters.
Although not employed on the highest level of policy making, he was close enough to the inner
circles of the administration to acquire firsthand knowledge of the mechanics of politics. In 1512, he
lost his job when the republican government, based on French support was replaced by the absolute
regime of the Medici, who has been restored to power with papal help. Machiavelli was accused of
serious crimes and tortured, but he was found innocent and banished to his small farm near
Florence. It was in such enforced leisure that he wrote the Prince (1513). The book was dedicated
to the Medici family, Lorenzo II de Medici (1492-1519), Lorenzo the Maginificient’s grandson. The
Prince explored the causes of the rise and fall of states and the factors for political success. As
Gramsci has rightly pointed out, the basic thing the Prince is that it is not a systematic treatment ,
but a ‘live’ work, in which political ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic form of a
myth’ The most elaborated work of Machiavelli is the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus
Livius (1521). Taking Roman history as a starting point, the Discourses attempts to dissect the
anatomy of body politic, and on a much more philosophical and historical foundation than that of
the Prince.
For all its breadth and elaborateness, the Discourse is of interest primarily to students of political
philosophy, whereas the Prince is destined to remain one of the half dozen political writings that
have entered the general body of world literature. According to William Ebenstein, the Prince is “a
reflection not only on man’s political ambitions and passions but of man himself. The most
revolutionary aspect of the Prince is not so much what it says as what it ignores. Before
Machiavelli, all political writing - from Plato and Aristotle through the middle ages to the

Renaissance had one central question: the end of the state. Machiavelli ignores the issue of the end
of the state in extra political terms. He assumes that power is an end in itself and he confines his
inquires into the means that are best suited to acquire retain, and expand power.
CHURCH VS STATE CONTROVERSY
Middle Ages roughly mean the period between the Gregorian movement of the 11th century and the
beginning of the protestant reformation movement. Medieval political theory was dominated by the
ideal of unity as taught by the ancient Roman Empire. There was a general belief in a centralized
secular power and a centralized ecclesiastical power. Even the state and the Church were fused
into one system and represented two different aspects of the same society. The function of the
universal empire was to help the growth of a universal church. When the struggle between papacy
and the Holy Roman Empire broke out, the defenders of both quoted scriptures in support of their
claims.
In the days when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the emperor was the head of both the
state and the church; but the church grew more and more strong and began to exercise the right of
excommunication. This right of excommunication was a powerful weapon in the hands of the
church. Thus ecclesiastical authority began to interfere with and control secular authority. When the
Holy Roman Empire was created, no attempt was made to define the relations between the emperor
and the pope. It was impossible to determine whether the emperor derived his authority immediately
from God or immediately through the pope.
The clash between the two began in the 11th century with the reforms of Gregory VIII who decreed
that ‘no ecclesiastic should be invested with the symbols of office by a secular ruler under penalty of
excommunication’. This decree led to a conflict between emperor Henry IV and Gregory. This
contest between the papacy and the empire lasted for about two centuries when at last the papacy
came out victorious as the unrivalled head of western Christendom. The papacy was strongest in the
13th century under Innocent III. By the 14th century the king had become strong, and feudalism, the
main support of the church, had become somewhat weakened.
IMPACT OF RENAISSANCE
Machiavelli was very much a creature of the Renaissance, his native city of Florence being then the
centre of Italian Renaissance. As mentioned above, in the Middle Ages, the church and the state
were closely interrelated; the church on the whole dominated the state and profoundly influencing
the political philosophy of the latter. The Renaissance impelled men to reexamine things from other
than clerical point of view. It was possible now to formulate political theories on a purely secular
basis and Machiavelli is the chief exponent of this schools of thought.
Renaissance ushered in rationalism which viewed God, man and nature from the stand point of
reason and not faith. The international conflict, following geographical discoveries, produced the
concepts of nationalism and nation- state which went against medieval universalism in church and
state. The most important discovery of the Renaissance- more significant than any single work of art
or any one genius was the discovery of man. The Renaissance goes beyond the moral selfhood of
stoicism, the spiritual uniqueness of Christianity, the aesthetic individuality of the ancient Greeks,

and views man in his totality. Displacing God man becomes the centre of the universe, the value of
this new solar system are inevitably different from those of the God centered universe.
The Renaissance signified a rebirth of the human spirit in the attainment of liberty, self confidence
and optimism. In contradiction to the medieval view, which had envisaged the human being as fallen
and depraved in an evil world with the devil at the centre, the Renaissance captured the Greek ideal
of the essential goodness of individual. This return to a pre- Christian attitude towards humans, god
and nature found expression in all aspects of human endeavour and creativity. The Renaissance
signaled the breakdown of a unified Christian society. Among the centers of Renaissance, Florence
was always first, reaching its climax in Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who most perfectly
represented and lived, the Renaissance ideal of universal man.
Attitude towards Religion
The novelty in Machiavelli’s writings was his attitude towards religion and morality, which
distinguished from all those who preceded him. He was scathing in his attack on the church and its
church for their failure to provide moral aspiration. He wrote thus: We Italians then owe to the
Church of Rome and her priests our having become irreligious and bad, but we owe her a still
greater debt and one that will be the cause of our ruin, namely that the church has kept and still
keeps our country divided. ‘
Machiavelli was anti- church and anti clergy, but not anti religion. He considered religion as
necessary not only for man’s social life but also for the health and prosperity of the state. It was
important within a state because of the influence it wielded over political life in general. Machiavelli’s
attitude towards religion was strictly utilitarian. It was a social force; it played a pivotal role because
it appealed to the selfishness of man through its doctrine of reward and punishment, thereby
inducing proper behaviour and good conduct that was necessary for the well-being of a society.
Religion determined the social and ethical norms and values that governed human conduct and
actions.
According to William Ebenstein, Machiavelli’s views on morals and religion illustrate his belief
in the supremacy of power over other social values. He has so sense of religion as a deep personal
experience, and the mystical element in religion - its supernatural and supranational character is
alien to his outlook. Yet he has a positive attitude toward religion; albeit his religion becomes a tool
of influence and control in the hands of the ruler over the ruled. Machiavelli sees in religion the poor
man’s reason, ethics, and morality put together and ‘where religion exists it is easy to introduce
armies and discipline’
The role of religion as a mere instrument of political domination, cohesion and unity becomes even
clearer in Machiavelli’s advice that the ruler support and spread religious doctrines and beliefs in
miracles that he knows to be false. Machiavelli’s interest in Christianity is not philosophical or
theological , but purely pragmatic land political. He is critical of Christianity because “it glorifies
more the humble and contemplative men than the men of action”, whereas the Roman pagan
religion defied only men who had achieved great glory, such as commanders of republics and chiefs
of republics’ Machiavelli argues that “Christianity idealises humility, lowliness, and a contempt for

wordly objects as contrasted with the pagan qualities of grander of soul, strength of body, and other
qualities, that render men formidable”.
Concerning the church, Machiavelli preferred two main charges. First, he states that the
Italians have become’ irreligiou’s and bad’ because of the evil example of the court of Rome’. The
second and more serious accusation is that the church ‘has kept and still keeps our country divided’.
He goes on to say that the sole cause of Italian political disunity is the church. Having acquired
jurisdiction over a considerable portion of Italy “she has never had sufficient power or courage to
enable her to make herself sole sovereign of all Italy”.
Machiavelli distinguished between pagan and Christian moralities, and chose paganism. He
did not condemn Christian morality, nor did he try to redefine the Christian conception of a good
person. He dismissed the Christian view that an individual was endowed with a divine element and
a supernatural end. He also rejected the idea of absolute good. He observed: Goodness is
simply that which sub serves on the average or in the long run, the interests of the mass of
individuals. The terms good and evil have no transcendental reference. They refer to the community
considered as an association of individuals and to nothing else.
Though Machiavelli was critical of Christianity, he retained the basic Christian views on the
differences between good and evil. For instance, he regarded murdering one’s co-citizens, betraying
one’s friends, disloyalty and irreligiousness as lack of virtue not entitled to glory. Machiavelli was
clear that Italy needed a religion similar to one that ancient Roman had, a religion that taught to
serve the interest of the state. He was categorical that Florentines needed political and military
virtues which Christian faith did not impart.
Machiavelli’s attitude to religion and morality made him highly controversial. Strauss
characterized him as a teacher of evil. Prof. Sabine saw him as being amoral. It is beyond dispute
that Machiavelli separated religion from politics and set the tone for one of the main themes of
modern times, namely secularization of thought and life. Though conscious of the importance of
religion as a cementing force in society, he was hostile towards Christianity and looked upon the
Roman Catholic Church as the main adversary. He espoused hostility towards religion, considering
he was writing in Italy prior to the Reformation.
Modern secular nation state
One of the major contributions of Machiavelli is that he separated religion from politics and set the
tone for one of the main themes of modern times, namely secularisation of thought and life.
Machiavelli criticised the church of his day precisely for political and not religious reasons. He
recognised that the existence of the papal state and its ceaseless struggle to dominate political
affairs was a primary cause of Italy’s inability to unite into one political unit.
Though culturally vibrant and creative, Italy remained politically divided, weak, and a prey to
the imperial ambitions of the French, German and Spanish. All of them were unable to unite the
entire peninsula. The Florentine Republic reflected severe factional conflicts and institutional
breakdown Italians could not reconcile to the fact that an age of heightened cultural creativity and
scientific discoveries coincided with loss of political liberty leading to foreign domination. As Prof.
Sabine has rightly pointed out, Italian society, intellectually brilliant and artistically creative more

emancipated than many in Europe……. was a prey to the worst political corruption and moral
degradation’. It produced some great minds and intellectuals of that period like Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo and Santi Raphael. Its galaxy of artists made Renaissance Italy compared to Athens
of the 5th century B.C. However, While Athens flourished politically with a vibrant participatory
democracy, in Italy there was a political vacuum.
Writing at a time of political chaos and moral confusion, Italian unification became the chief
objective for Machiavelli, who could see clearly the direction that political evolution was taking
throughout Europe. He desired to redeem Italy form servitude and misery. Like Dante he dreamt of
a united regenerated and glorious Italy. In order to achieve this, any means, were justified, for the
purpose was the defense and preservation of the state and its people. Thus freedom of the country
and the common good remained the core themes of Machiavelli’s writings. A perfect state,
according to Machiavelli, was one promoted the common good, namely the observance of laws,
honouring women , keeping public offices open to all citizens on grounds of virtue, maintaining a
moderate degree of social equality, and protecting industry, wealth and property.
Machiavelli is perhaps the first political thinker who used the words state in the
sense in which it is used nowadays, that is something having a definite territory, population,
government and sovereignty of its own. It was on Machiavelli’s concept of a sovereign, territorial
and secular state that Bodin and Grotius built up a theory of legal sovereignty which was given a
proper formulation by John Austin. In other words, Machiavelli gave the state its modern
connotation. His state is the nation free from religious control. He has freed the state from the
medieval bondage of religion. Machiavelli almost identifies the state with the ruler. The state being
the highest forms of human association has supreme claim over men’s obligations.
In both ‘Prince and Discourses’ Machiavelli insists on the necessity of extending the territory
of the state. According to him, either a state must expand or perish. His idea of the extension of the
dominion of state did not mean the blending of two or more social or political organisations, but the
subjection of a number of states under the rule of a single Prince or common wealth. Roman state
and its policy of expansion perhaps set and ideal before Machiavelli. Force of arms was necessary
for both for political aggrandisement as well as for the preservation of states but force must be
applied judiciously combined with craft.
POLITICAL REALISM
Machiavelli is regarded as the father of modern political science and the first realist in western
political thought. He was a student of practical and speculative politics. A realist in politics he cared
little for political philosophy as such. His writings expound a theory of the art of government rather
than a theory of the state. He was more concerned with the actual working of the machinery of
government than the abstract principles of the state and its constitution. As Prof. C.C Maxey has
rightly pointed out ‘his passion for the practical as against the theoretical undoubtedly did much to
rescue political thought from the scholastic obscuratism of the middle ages.’
Machiavelli was the first to state and systematically expose the power view of politics, laying down
the foundations of a new science in the same way as Galileo’s Dynamics became the basis of the
modern science of nature. Machiavaelli identified politics as the struggle for the acquisition,
maintenance and consolidation of political power, an analysis developed by Thomas Hobbes and
Harrington in the 17th century, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the 18th century Pareto

Mosca and Robert Michels in the 19th century, and Robert A Dhal, David Easton, Hans J.
Morgenthau Morton A Kaplan etc in the 20th century.
Machiavelli’s writings do not belong to the domain of political theory, He wrote mainly of the
mechanics of government, of the means by which the states may be made strong, of the policies by
which they can expand their power and of the errors that lead to their decay and destruction. Prof.
Dunning called Machiavellian philosophy as “the study of the art of government rather than a theory
of state”.
The Prince of Machiavelli is the product of the prevailing conditions of his time in his country,
Italy. As it is not an academic treatise or value oriented philosophy; it is in real sense real politik. It
is a memorandum on the art of government, is pragmatic in character and provides technique of the
fundamental principles of states craft for a successful ruler. It deals with a machinery of government
which the successful ruler can make use of it.
Chapter XVIII of the ‘Prince’ gives Machiavelli’s ideas of the virtues which a successful ruler
must possess. Integrity may be theoretically better than collusion, but cunningness and subtlety are
often useful. The two basic means of success for a prince are the judicious use of law and physical
force. He must combine in himself rational as well as brutal characteristic, a combination of lion and
fox. The ruler must imitate the fox and lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from the traps and the
fox cannot defend himself from wolves”. A prudent ruler, according to Machiavelli, ought not to keep
faith when by doing so it would be against his interest and when the reasons which made him bind
himself no longer exist.
Machiavelli takes a radically pessimistic view of human nature and his psychological outlook
is intimately related to his political philosophy. The individual according to Machiavelli was wicked,
selfish and egoistic. He was fundamentally weak, ungrateful, exhibitionist, artificial, anxious to avoid
danger and excessively desirous of gain. Lacking in honesty and justice, he was ready to act in a
manner that was detrimental to the community. Being essentially anti social , selfish and greedy,
the individual would readily forgive the murder of his father but never the seizure of property.; the
individual was generally timid, averse to new ideas and complaints Machiavelli conceived human
beings as being basically restless, ambitious, aggressive and acquisitive, in a state of constant trifle
and anarchy. Interestingly, Machiavelli presumed that human nature remained constant, for history
moved in a cyclical way, alternating between growth and decay.
According to Machiavelli, state actions were not to be judged by individual ethics. He
prescribes double standard of conduct for statesmen and the private citizens. The moral code of
conduct applicable to individuals cannot be applied to the actions of state. The ruler is the creator of
law as also of morality, for moral obligations must ultimately be sustained by law and the ruler is not
only outside the law, he is outside morality as well. There is no standard to judge his acts except
the success of his political expedience for enlarging and perpetuating the power of his state. It was
always working for an individual to commit crime, even to lie but sometimes good and necessary for
the ruler to do so in the interest of the state. Similarly, it is wrong for a private individual to kill but not
for the state to execute someone by way of punishment. Machiavelli strongly believes that a citizen
acts for himself and as such is also responsible for his action, whereas the state acts for all.
Like other realists after him, Machiavelli identifies “power politics with the whole of political
reality” and he thus fails to grasp that ideas and ideals can become potent facts in the struggle for

political survival. In the wards of William Ebenstein, Machiavellian realists are usually realistic and
rational in the choice of means with which they carry out their schemes of aggrandisement and
expansion. Because Machiavelli was interested only in the means of acquiring, retaining, and
expanding power, and not in the end of the state, he remained unaware of the relations between
means and ends. Ends lead to existence apart from means but are continuously shaped by them.
As one examines the references to rulers in the Prince more closely, one finds that Machiavelli was
not interested in all forms of state or in all forms of power. What fascinated him above all was the
dynamics of illegitimate power; he was little interested in states whose authority was legitimate but
was primarily concerned with “new dominions both as to prince and state”. He realised that there is
nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than
to initiate a new order of things. His primary concern with founders of new governments and state
illuminates his attitude on the use of unethical means in politics. Thus, Machiavelli was little
interested in the institutional framework of politics.
AN ASSESSMENT
Machiavelli’s political theories were not developed in a systematic manner; they were mainly
in the form of remarks upon particular situations. According to Prof. Sabine, the ‘character of
Machiavelli and the true meaning of his philosophy have been one of the enigmas of modern history.
‘He has been represented as an utter cynic, and impassioned patriot, an ardent nationalist, a political
Jesuit, a convinced democrat, and unscrupulous seeker after the favour of despots. In each of their
views, incompatible as they are, there is probably an element of truth. Many political thinkers drew
their inspiration and further developed solid and most important political concepts such as the
concept of the state and its true meaning from Machiavelli. As Prof. Sabine has pointed out,
“Machiavelli more than any other political thinker created the meaning that has been attached to the
state in modern political usage”.
Machiavelli is regarded as the father of modern political theory and political science. Apart
from theorising about the state he also given meaning to the concept of sovereignty. Machiavelli’s
importance was in providing an outlook that accepted both secularisation and a moralisation of
politics. He took politics out of context of theology, and subordinated moral and subordinated moral
principles to the necessities of political existence and people’s welfare. The absence of religious
polemics in Machiavelli led the theorists who followed to confront issues like order and power in
strictly political terms. Thus Machiavelli was the first who gave the idea of secularism. The
Machiavellian state is to begin within a complete sense, and entirely secular state.
Machiavelli was the first pragmatist or realist in the history of political thought. His method
and approach to problems of politics were guided by common sense and history’ His ideas were
revolutionary in nature and substance and he brought politics in line with political practice. By
empathising the importance of the study of history, Machiavelli established a method that was
extremely useful. Gramsci praised the greatness of Machiavelli for separating politics from ethics.
In the ‘Prison Notebooks’ there were a number of references to Machiavelli, and Gramsci pointed
out that the protagonist of the new prince in modern times could not be an individual hero, but a
political party whose objective was to establish a new kind of state. Though critical of the church
and Christianity Machiavelli was born and died a Christian. His attack on the church was due to his
anti clericalism, rather than being anti - religion.

Module III
Thomas Hobbes (1588 -1679)
Thomas Hobbes is really the first Englishman who wrote comprehensively on political
philosophy and made valuable contributions to it. He is one of the most controversial and important
figures in the history of western political thought. His status as a political thinker was not fully
recognised until the 19th century. The philosophical radicalism of the English utilitarian’s and the
scientific rationalism of the French Encyclopaedists incorporated in a large measure Hobbes’s
mechanical materialism, radical individualism and psychological egoism. By the mid- 20th century
Hobbes was acclaimed as “probably the greatest writer on political philosophy that the English
speaking people have produced”. According to Micheal Oakeshott, “the Leviathan is the greatest,
perhaps the sole, masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English language”.
Hobbes lived at a time of great constitutional crisis in England when the theory of Divine
Right of Kings was fiercely contested by the upholders of the constitutional rule based on popular
consent. It is he who for the first time systematically expounded the absolute theory of sovereignty
and originated the positivist theory of law. Though he was not a liberal, modern commentators
believe that his political doctrine has greater affinities with the liberalism of the 20th century than his
authoritarian theory would initially suggest. From a broad philosophical perspective, the importance
of Hobbes is his bold and systematic attempt to assimilate the science of man and civil society to a
thoroughly modern science corresponding to a completely mechanistic conception of nature. His
psychological egoism, his ethical relativism and his political absolutism are all supposed to follow
logically from the assumptions or principles underlying the physical world which primarily consists of
matter and motion.
Hobbes was prematurely born in 1588 in Westport near the small town of Malmesburg in
England at a time when the country was threatened by the impending attack of the Spanish
Armada. His father was a member of the clergy (vicar) near Malmesburg .His long life was full of
momentous events. He was a witness to the great political and constitutional turmoil caused by
English civil war and his life and writings bear clear imprint of it. After his education at Oxford,
Hobbes joined as tutor to the son of William Cavendish, who was about the same age as Hobbes.
The association of Cavendish family lasted, with some interruptions until Hobbes’ death. Through
his close connection with the royal family he met eminent scholars and scientists of the day such as
Bacon Descartes, Galileo etc. His first publication was translation in English of Thucydides History
of the Peloponnesian War in 1629. Besides just before he died, at the age of 86, he translated
Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad into English. The important works of Hobbes include De Civic and the
Leviathan.
Hobbes’ political philosophy in the Leviathan (1651) was a reflection of the civil war in
England following the execution of Charles I . According to William Ebenstein the Leviathan is not
an apology for the Stuart monarchy nor a grammar of despotic government but the first general
theory of politics in the English language’ What makes Leviathan a masterpiece of philosophical
literature is the profound logic of Hobbes’ imagination, his power as an artist. Hobbes recalls us to
our morality with a deliberate conviction, with a subtle and sustained argument.

State of nature and Human nature
Hobbes’ political theory is derived from his psychology which in turn is based on his
mechanistic conception of nature. According to Hobbes’, prior to the formation of commonwealth
or state, there existed state nature. Men in the state of nature were essentially selfish and
egoistic. Contrary to Aristotle and medieval thinkers, who saw human nature as innately social,
Hobbes viewed human beings as isolate egoistic, self interested and seeking society as a means to
their ends. Unlike most defenders of absolute government, who start out with the gospel for
inequality, Hobbes argues that men were naturally equal in mid. This basic equality of men is a
principal source of trouble and misery. Men have in general equal faculties; they also cherish like
hope and desires. It they desire the same thing, which they cannot both obtain, they become
enemies and seek to destroy each other. In the state of nature, therefore men are in a condition
of war, of every man against every man and Hobbes adds that the nature of the war consists not
in actual fighting “but in the known disposition there to” force and fraud the two cardinal virtues of
war , flourish in this atmosphere of perpetual fear and strife fed by three Psychological causes:
competition, diffidence and glory. In such a condition, there is no place for industry, agriculture,
navigation , trade; there are no arts or letter; no society , no amenities of civilised living, and worst of
all, there is continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short’.
According to Hobbes, there can be no distinction between right and wrong in the state of
nature. Any conception of right and wrong presupposes a standard of conduct, a common law to
judge that conduct and a common law giver. Again there is no distinction between just and unjust in
the state of nature, for where there is no common superior, there is no law and where there is no law
there can be no justice.
Hobbes asserted that every human action, feeling and thought was ultimately physically
determined. Though the human being was dependent on his life, on the motion of his body he was
able to some extent, to control those motions and make his life. This he did by natural means, ie, by
relying partly on natural passions and partly on reason. It was reason, according to Hobbes, that
distinguished human beings from animals. Reason enabled the individual to understand the
impressions that sense organs picked up from the external world, and also indicated an awareness
of one’s natural passions. He mentioned a long list of passions, but the special emphasis was on
fear, in particular the fear of death, and on the universal and perfectly justified quest for power. ‘ ‘
Hobbes contended that life was nothing but a perpetual and relentless desire and pursuit of
power, a prerequisite for felicity. He pointed out that one ought to recognise a general inclination of
all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceased only in Death.
Consequently, individuals were averse to death, especially accidental death for it marked the end of
attainment of all felicity. Power was sought for it represented a means of acquiring those things that
made life worthwhile and contented. The fact that all individuals sought power distinguished Hobbes
from Machiavelli. Hobbes observed that human beings stood nothing to gain from the company of
others except pain. A permanent rivalry existed between human beings for honour, riches and
authority, with life as nothing but potential warfare, a war of every one against the others.

Hobbes human relationships is as those of mutual suspicion and hostility. The only rule that
individuals acknowledged was that one would take if one had the power and retain as long as one
could. In this “ill condition” there was no law , no justice, no notion of right and wrong . Thus
according to Hobbes, the principal cause of conflict was within the nature of man. As mentioned
earlier, competition, diffidence and glory were the three reasons that were quarrel and rivalry
among individuals. “The first, make the men invade for Gain; the second, for safety and the third,
for reputation. The first use violence, to make them selves Masters of other men’s persons…. the
second to defend them; the third, for trifles………………”
In a state of nature, individuals enjoyed complete liberty, including a natural right to
everything, even to one another’s bodies. The natural laws were not laws or commands.
Subsequently, Hobbes argued that the laws of nature were also proper laws, since they were
delivered in the word of God. These laws were counsels of prudence. Natural laws in Hobbes’
theory did not mean eternal justice, perfect morality or standards to judge existing laws as the Stoics
did.
It is clear from above observations that what is central to Hobbes’ psychology is not
hedonism but search for power and glory, riches and honour. Power is, of course, the central
feature of Hobbes’ system of ideas. While recognising the importance of power in Hobbesian
political ideas, Michael Oakeshott wrote thus: “Man is a complex of power; desire is the desire for
power, pride is illusion about power, honour opinion about power life the unremitting exercise of
power and death the absolute loss of power “
Thus Hobbes in his well known work, ‘The Leviathan’ has presented a bleak and dismal
picture of the condition of men in the state of nature. However, Hobbes does not extensively
discuss the question of whether men have actually ever lived in such a state of nature. He noted
that the savage people in many places of America have no government and live in the brutish and
nasty manner. John Rawls thinks that Hobbes’ state of nature is the classic example of the
“prisoner’s dilemma” of game – theoretic analysis.
Social contract
After presenting a horrible and dismal picture of the state of nature, Hobbes proceeds to discuss
how man can escape from such an intolerably miserable condition. ‘In the second part of the
Leviathan, Hobbes creates his commonwealth by giving new orientation to the old idea of the social
contract, a contract between ruler and ruled. Hobbes thus builds his commonwealth. ‘the only
way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them ( i.e, men) from the invasion of
foreigners and the injuries of one another. ….. is to confer all their power and strength upon one
Man or upon one Assembly of men that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices unto one will
the sovereign himself stands outside the covenant. He is a beneficiary of the contract, but not a
party to it. Each man makes an agreement with every man in the following manner’
“I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man or to this assembly of man on the
condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner. This is the
generation of that great Leviathan or rather ( to speak more reverently) of that mortal god, to which

we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence.’ It is clear from the above statement that
no individual can surrender his right to self-preservation.
In order to secure their escape from the state of nature, individuals renounce their natural rights to
all things, and institute by common consent, a third person, or body of persons, conferring all rights
of him for enforcing the contract by using force and keeping them all and authorising all his action as
their own. According to Hobbes, the social contract institutes an office which may be held by one
man or an assembly of men but which is distinct from the natural person of the holder. By the
transfer of the natural rights to each man, the recipient becomes their representative an is invested
with authority to deliberate, will and act in place of the deliberation will and action of each separate
man. The multitude of conflicting wills is replaced, not by a common will but a single representative
will.
According to William Ebenstein Hobbesian, social contract is made between subjects and
subjects and not between subjects and sovereign. The sovereign is not a party to the contract, but
its creation. This contract is a unilateral contract in which the contracting individuals obligate
themselves to the resultant sovereign. Then again it is an irrevocable contract owe the individuals
contract themselves into a civil society, they cannot annual the contract. They cannot repudiate their
obligation. Repudiation of a contract is an act of public will of the individuals which they had
surrounded at the time of the original contract. Thus Hobbesian contract is a social and not
governmental contract. In this conception of social contact, the sovereign cannot commit any
breach of covenant because he is not a party to it. By participating in the creation of the sovereign
the subject is anther of all the ruler does and must therefore not complain of any of the rulers’
actions, because thus he would be deliberately doing injury to himself. Hobbes concedes that the
sovereign may commit iniquity but not “injustice or injury in the proper signification”, because he
cannot by definition, act illegally; he determines what is just and unjust and his action is law.
Political Absolutism
The heart of Hobbes’ political philosophy is his theory of sovereignty. He was not the first to
use the term sovereignty in its modern sense. It is beyond dispute that before and after Thomas
Hobbes the doctrine of sovereignty has been defended by various scholars on various grounds.
Hobbes was perhaps the first thinker to defend the sovereignty of the state on scientific grounds
Hobbes freed the doctrine of sovereignty of limitations imposed by Jean Bodin and Hugo Grotius.
Hobbes saw the sovereign power as undivided, unlimited, inalienable and permanent. The
contract created the state and the government simultaneously. The sovereign power was authorised
to enact laws as it deemed fit and such laws were legitimate Hobbes was categorical that the powers
and authority of the sovereign has to be defined with least ambiguity.
The following are some of the major attributes of Hobbesian sovereign.
1. Sovereign is absolute and unlimited and accordingly no conditions implicit or explicit can be
imposed on it. It is not limited either by the rights of the subjects or by customary and
statutory laws.

2. Sovereignty is not a party to the covenant or contract. A sovereign does not exist prior to the
to the commencement of the contract. Contract was signed between men in the state of
nature mainly to escape from a state of war of every man against every man. The contract is
irrevocable.
3. The newly created sovereign can do no injury to his subjects because he is their authorised
agent. His actions cannot be illegal because he himself is the sole source and interpreter of
laws.
4. No one can complain that sovereign is acting wrongly because everybody has authorised him
to act on his behalf.
5. Sovereign has absolute right to declare war and make peace, to levy taxes and to impose
penalties.
6. Sovereign is the ultimate source of all administrative, legislative and judicial authority.
According to Hobbes, law is the command of the sovereign.
7. The sovereign has the right to allow or takes away freedom of speech and opinion.
8. The sovereign has to protect the people externally and internally for peace and preservation
were basis of the creation of the sovereign or Leviathan. Thus Hobbesian sovereign
represents the ultimate, supreme and single authority in the state and there is no right of
resistance against him except in case of self defence. According to Hobbes, any act of
disobedience of a subject is unjust because it is against the covenant. Covenants without
swords are but mere words. Division or limitation of sovereignty means destruction of
sovereignty which means that men are returning to the old state of nature where life will be
intolerably miserable.
By granting absolute power to the sovereign, some critics went to the extent of criticising Hobbes as
the ‘spiritual father of totalitarian fascism or communism’ However, William Ebenstein in his well
known work ‘ Great Political Thinkers’ has opposed this charge on following grounds. First,
government is set up according to Hobbes, by a covenant that transfers all power. This contractual
foundation of government is anathema to the modern totalitarians second, Hobbes assigns to the
state a prosaic business; to maintain order and security for the benefit of the citizens. By contrast,
the aim of the modern totalitarian state is anti-individualistic and anti hedonistic. Third Hobbesian
state is authoritarian, not totalitarian. Hobbes’ authoritaritarianism lacks one of the most
characteristic features of the modern totalitarian state: inequality before the law, and the resultant
sense of personal insecurity. Fourth, Hobbes holds that the sovereign may be one man or an
assembly of men, whereas modern totalitarianism is addicted to the leadership principle. The
Hobbesian sovereign is a supreme administrator and law giver but not a top rabble rouser,
spellbinder, propagandist, or showman. Fifth, Hobbes recognises that war is one of the two main
forces that drive men to set up a state. But whenever he speaks of war, it is defensive war, and
there is no glorification of war in the Leviathan. By contrast, totalitarians look on war as something
lightly desirable and imperialist war as the highest form of national life.

Thus it is clear from the above observations that Hobbes’ theory of sovereignty is the first
systematic and consistent statement of complete sovereignty in the history of political thought. His
sovereign enjoys an absolute authority over his subjects and his powers can neither be divided nor
limited either by the law of nature or by the law of God.
Hobbes’ Leviathan is not only a forceful enunciation of the theory of sovereignty but also a powerful
statement of individualism,. As Prof. Sabine has rightly pointed out, in Hobbesian political
philosophy both individualism and absolutism go hand in hand. Granting absolute and unlimited
power to the state is, in essence, an attempt to provide a happy and tension free life to the
individuals.
CONCLUSION
The Leviathan of Hobbes has been regarded as one of the masterpieces of political theory known for
its style, clarity and lucid exposition. He has laid down a systematic theory of sovereignty, human
nature, political obligation etc. Hobbes saw the state as a conciliator of interests, a point of view that
the Utilitarian’s developed in great detail. Hobbes created an all powerful state but it was not
totalitarian monster.
Hobbes is considered as the father of political science: His method was deductive and geometrical
rather than empirical and experimental. His theory of sovereignty is indivisible, inalienable and
perpetual. Sovereign is the sole source and interpreter of laws. Before and after Hobbes, political
absolutism has been defended by different scholars on various grounds. Hobbes was perhaps the
first political thinker to defend political absolutism on scientific grounds.
JOHN LOCKE
John Locke’s first works were written at Oxford, namely the Two Tracts on Government in
1660-1662, and the Essays on the Law of Nature in Latin in 1664. In both these writings he argued
against religious toleration and denied consent as the basis of legitimate government. Locke
published his Two Treatises of Government in 1690. The same year saw the publication of his
famous philosophical work The Essay Concerning Human understanding. Locke’s other important
writings were the Letters Concerning Toleration and Some Thought Concerning Education.
The Two Treatises of Government consists of two parts- the first is the refutation of filmer and
the second, the more important of the two, is an inquiry into the ‘true original, extent and end of civil
government’. The work was ostensibly written to justify the glorious revolution of 1688. According to
William Ebenstein, Locke’s two treatises of government is often dismissed as a mere apology for the
victorious Whigs in the revolution of 1688. The two treatises exposed and defended freedom,
consent and property as coordinal principles of legitimate political power. Locke saw political power
as a trust, with the general community specifying its purposes an aims.
Limited Government
In order to explain the origin of political power, Locke began with a description of the state of
nature which for him was one of perfect equality and freedom regulated by the laws of nature.
Locke’s description of state of nature was not as gloomy and pessimistic as Hobbe’s. The individual
in the Lockean state of nature was naturally free and become a political subject out of free choice.

The state of nature was not one of licence, for though the individual was free form any superior
power, he was subject to the laws of nature. From the laws of nature, individuals derived the natural
rights to life, liberty and property (Together known as Right to Property). The laws of nature known to
human beings through the power of reason, which directed them towards their proper interests.
Locke believes that man is a rational and a social creature capable of recognising and living
in a moral order. Thus Lockean men in the state of nature led a life of mutual assistance, good will
and preservation. Locke cannot conceive of human beings living together without some sort of
law and order, and in the state of nature it is the law of nature that rules. The law of nature through
the instrument of reason , defines what is right and wrong,; if a violation of the law occurs, the
execution of the penalty is in the state of nature, ‘put into every man’s hands, whereby every one
has right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation’ Locke
penetratingly notes that in the law of nature the injured party is authorised to the judge in his own
case and to execute the judgment against the culprit. In other words, in the Lockean state of nature,
there was no organised govt. which alone can protect and enforce the natural rights.
According to William Ebenstein, Lockean law of the state of nature is deficient in three
important points. First, it is not sufficiently clear. Second, there is no third party judge who has no
personal stake in disputes. Third, in the state of nature the injured party is not always strong
enough to execute the just sentence of the law. Thus the purpose of the social contract is to
establish organised law and orders so that the uncertainties of the state of nature will be replaced
by the predictability of known laws and impartial institutions. After society is set up by contract,
government is established, not by a contract, but by fiduciary trust.
For the three great lacks of the state of nature - the lack of a known law, of a known judge, of
a certain executive power – the three appropriate remedies would seem to be establishment of a
legislative, of a judicial, and of an executive authority. In civil society or the state, Locke notes the
existence of three powers, but they are not the above. There is first of all the legislative, which he
calls’ the supreme power of the commonwealth.’ The legislative power was supreme since it was
the representative of the people, having the power to make laws. Besides the legislative there was
an executive, usually one person, with the power to enforce the law. The executive which included
the judicial power, has to be always in session. It enjoyed prerogatives and was subordinate and
accountable to the legislature. The legislative and executive power had to be separate, thus pre-
empting Montesquieu’s theory separation of powers. The third power that Locke recognises is
what he calls the federative- the power that makes treaties, that which is concerned with the
country’s external relations. Locke realises the great importance of foreign policy, and knows that
its formulation, execution and control presents a very special kind of problem to constitutional
states.
Characteristics of Lockean state
The first and foremost feature of Lockean state is that it exists for the people who form it,
they do not exist for it. Repeatedly he insists that ‘the end of government is the good of the
community’. As C.L. Wayper has rightly pointed out the Lockean ‘ state is a machine which we

create for our good and run for our purposes, and it is both dangerous and unnecessary to speak of
some supposed mystical good of state or country independent of the lives of individual citizens.
Locke further insists that all true states must be founded on consent. Further, the true state
must be a constitutional state in which men acknowledge the rule of law. For there can be no
political liberty if a man is subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of other man.
Government must therefore be established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people,
and not by extemporary decrees.
The most important characteristic of Locke’s true state is that it is limited, not absolute. It is
limited because it derives power from the people, and because it holds power in trust for the people.
As only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, its authority is confined to securing those ends. It is
limited moreover, by Natural law in particular. The state should exist for the good of the people,
should depend on their consent, should be constitutional and limited in its authority,.
Besides, Lockean state is a tolerant state which will respect differences of opinion. It is a
negative state which does not seek to improve the character of its citizens nor to manage their lives.
Again, Lockean state is also a transformer state, transforming selfish interest into public good.
Limitations of Government
John Locke advocated a limited sovereign state, for reason and experience taught him that political
absolutism was untenable. Describing the characteristics of a good state Locke said it existed for
the people who formed it and not the vice- versa. It had to be based on the consent of the people
subject to the constitution and the rule of law. It is limited since its powers were derived from the
people and were held in trust.
Locke does not build up a conception of legal sovereignty. He abolishes the legal
sovereignty in favour of popular sovereignty. He has no idea of absolute and indivisible sovereignty
as presented by Thomas Hobbes. Locke is for a government based on division of power and subject
to a number of limitations. His limited government cannot command any thing against public
interests. It cannot violate the innate natural rights of the individuals. It cannot govern arbitrarily
and tax the subjects without their consent . Its laws must conform to the laws of Nature and of god.
It is not the government which is sovereign but law which is rooted in common consent. Its laws
must conform to the laws of Nature and of God. It is not the government which is sovereign but law
which is rooted in common consent. A government which violates its limitations is not worthy of
obedience.
Most important in terms of limiting the power of government is the democratic principal itself. The
legislature is to be periodically elected by the people. It could be no other way, in fact, since
legitimate government must be based upon the consent of the governed according to Locke, and
direct election of representatives to the legislature makes consent a reality. And since elected
representatives depend of popular support for their tenure in office, they have every interest in
staying within legal bounds.

A further limitation upon the legislative power recommended by Locke is limiting of the duration of
legislative sessions because, he argues constant frequent meetings of the legislative could not but
be burdensome to the people”.
In Locke’s mind, the less frequent the meetings of the legislature the fewer the laws passed and
consequently, the less chance that mischief will be done.
Another crucially important structural principle in limiting the power of government is the separation
of powers. Between the legislative and executive, the logic behind this principle, according to
Locke, is that “It may be too great a temptation to human frailty apt to grasp at power fo the same
persons who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute
them. .” Locke, however, does not go so far as to make the separation of powers an absolute
condition for limited government.
Natural Rights and Private Property
The conception of Natural rights and the theory of property was one of the important themes in
Locke’s political philosophy. According to Locke, men in the state of nature possessed natural
rights. These rights are: Right to life liberty and property. Liberty means an exemption from all
rules save the law of nature which is a means to the realisation of man’s freedom.
Locke spoke of individuals in the state of nature having perfect freedom to dispose of their
possessions, and persons, as they thought fit. He emphatically clarified that since property was a
natural right derived from natural law, it was therefore prior to the government. He emphasised that
individuals had rights to do as they pleased within the bounds of the laws of nature. Rights were
limited to the extent that they did not harm themselves or others.
According to Locke, human beings are rational creatures, and “Reason tells us that Men,
being once born have a right to their preservation, and such other things as nature affords for their
subsistence”. Rational people must concede that every human being has a right to life, and
therefore to those things necessary to preserve life. This right to life, and those things necessary to
preserve it, Locke calls it property. The right to life, he argues, means that every man has property
in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself “ Logically, the right to property in
person means that all human beings have a right to property in those goods and possessions
acquired through labour that are necessary to preserve their person.
Locke argues that the “Labour of his body, and the work of his Hands are properly his.
What so ever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath
mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his won and thereby makes it his
property”. Since human beings have property in their persons and hence a right to life, it follows
that they have property in those possessions that they have legitimately laboured to obtain. In
other words, property in both person and possessions, is a right that belongs to every human being
as human being. It is a right all people possess whether they be in a state of nature or in political
society. Locke thus says that the great and chief end of men’s uniting into commonwealth’s, and
cutting themselves under government is the preservation of their property”. Consequently,
Government has no other end but the preservation of people ‘Lives, liberties, and Estates” Liberty
is a property right for Locke because to have property in one’s person implies the right to think,
speak and act freely. Locke has argued that in the state of nature property is held in common until
people mix their labour with it at which point it becomes their private property. A person has right to
appropriate as much common property as desired so long as “there is enough and as good left in
common for others”
It was the social character of property that enabled Locke to defend a minimal state with
limited government and individual rights, and reject out right the hereditary principle of government.
Locke also wanted to emphasise that no government could deprive an individual of his material
possessions without the latter’s consent. It was the duty of the political power to protect
entitlements that individuals enjoyed by virtue of the fact that these had been given by God. In
short, Locke’s claim that the legitimate function of the government is the preservation of property
means not just that government must protect people’s lives and possessions, but that it must
ensure the right of unlimited accumulation of private property. Some scholars have argued that
Locke’s second treatise provides not only a theory of limited government but a justification for an
emerging capitalist system as well. Macpherson argued that Locke’s views on property made him a
bourgeois apologist, a defender of the privileges of the possessing classes. As Prof. William
Ebenstien has rightly pointed out, Lockean theory of property was later used in defence of
capitalism, but in the hands of pre-Marxian socialists it became a powerful weapon of attacking
capitalism.
Civil Society
According to Locke what drives men into society is that God put them “under strong
Obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination”. And men being by nature all free, equal and
independent , no one can be put out of this estate ( State of nature) and subjected to political
power of another without his own consent. Therefore, the problem is to form civil society by
common consent of all men and transfers their right of punishing the violators of natural law to an
independent and impartial authority. For all practical purposes, after the formation of civil society this
common consent becomes the consent of the majority; all parties must submit to the determination
of the majority which carries the force of the community. So all men unanimously agree to
incorporate themselves in one body and conduct their affairs by the opinion of the majority after they
have set up a political or civil society, the next step is to appoint a government to declare and
execute the natural law. This Locke calls the supreme authority established by the commonwealth or
civil society.
The compulsion to constitute a civil society was to protect and preserve freedom and to
enlarge it. The state of nature was one of liberty and equality, but it was also one where peace
was not secure, being constant by upset by the “corruption and viciousness of degenerate men”. It
lacked three important wants: the want of an established settled, known law, the want of a known
and indifferent judge; and the want of an executive power to enforce just decisions.
J. J. ROUSSEAU (1712 – 1778)
Jean Jacques Rousseau was one of the greatest political philosopher that the French has
produced. In the entire history of political theory he was the most exciting and provocative. He was
a genius and a keen moralist who was ruthless in his criticism of 18th century French society. He

was one of the most controversial thinkers, as evident from the conflicting, contradictory and often
diametrically opposite interpretations that existed of the nature and importance of his ideas. He is
best remembered for his concept of popular sovereignty, and the theory of general will which
provide a philosophical justification for democratic governance. He was the intellectual father of the
French Revolution as well as the last and perhaps the greatest of the modern contract theorists.
Rousseau was born in Geneva to an artisan family. His mother died of complications arising
from his birth, a tragedy that filled Rousseau with a lifelong sense of guilt and in all probability lay
behind much of his neurotic behaviour and personal unhappiness. As a young man he ws
apprenticed in several trades, and in 1728 he set out for a period of travel during which he
engaged in an extensive process of self- education. He was not like Hobbes and Locke, formally
trained in the university, nor did he consider himself a philosopher in any formal sense.
In 1742 Rousseau set out for Paris where he met the leading cultural, scientific and
philosophical luminaries of Enlightenment France. Among them was Diderot, a leading philosopher
and the founder of the encyclopedia, a multi-volume work that aimed at encompassing all
knowledge. Rousseau contributed several articles to the encyclopedia, the most important of which
was the Discourse on Political Economy. This work along with the first and second discourses, and
most importantly the social contract, constitutes the basic source of Rousseau’s social and political
thought, although he wrote several other minor political works, such as the Government of Poland.
In addition, Rousseau wrote several novels and numerous essays, and he produced three
autobiographical works, the most important of which is the Confessions. In 1761 Rousseau
published Emile perhaps the most famous work on education every written.
CRITIQUE OF CIVILISATION
Rousseau protested against intelligence, science and reason in so far as they destroyed
reverence faith and moral intuition, the factors on which society was based. His protest was a “revolt
against reason, for he regarded the thinking animal as a depraved, animal”. His conviction was
reflected by his unhappiness with Grotius, because his usual method of reasoning is constantly to
establish right by face.
Rousseau attacked civilisation and enlightenment in a prize winning essay written in 1749
on the question : Has the progress of science and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morality?
Rousseau argued that science was not saving but bring moral ruin upon us. Progress was an
illusion, what appeared to be advancement was in reality regression. The arts of civilised society
served only to ‘ cast garlands of followers over the chains men bore . The development of modern
civilisation had not made men either happier or more virtuous. In the modern sophisticated society
man was corrupted, the greater the sophistication the greater the corruption. Rousseau wrote thus :
“our minds have been corrupted in proportion as the arts and science have improved”.
In surveying history to support of his cult of natural simplicity, Rousseau is full of enthusiasm
in for Sparta, a “republic of demi- gods rather than of men”, famous for the happy and
ignorance of its inhabitants. By contrast, he denigrates Athens, the centre of vice, doomed to
perish because of its elegance, luxury, wealth, art and science. Rousseau sees a direct casual

relation between luxury constantly expanding needs, and the rise of art and science after which true
courage flags and the virtues disappear.
According to Rousseau, arts , manners, and politeness not only destroyed martial values but
also denied human nature, forcing individuals to conceal their real selves’ In modern society
happiness was built on the opinions of others rather than finding it in one’s own hearts. Thus he
dismissed modern civilised society as false and artificial for it destroyed natural and true culture.
GENERAL WILL
The doctrine of general will occupies a prominent place in Rousseau’s political philosophy In
the Discourse on Political Economy Rousseau had already dealt with the problem of general will. He
sees the body politic’ “possessed of a will and this general will, which tends always to the
preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes
for all the members of the state in their relation to one another and to it, the rule of what is just or
unjust”. By introducing the concept of General Will, Rousseau fundamentally alters the mechanistic
concept of the state as an instrument and revives the organic theory of the state, which goes back
to Plato and Aristotle.
In order to understand the meaning and importance of general will it is necessary to
understand the meanings of related terms and concepts. According to Rousseau, the actual will of
the individual is his impulsive and irrational will. It is based on self- interest and is not related to the
well-being of the society. Such a will is narrow an self conflicting. The real will of the individual is
on the other hand, rational will which aims at the general happiness of the community. The real will
promotes harmony between the individuals in society. Rousseau believes that an average man has
both an actual and real will.
The general will is the sum total of or rather synthesis of the real wills of the individuals in
society. It represents the common consciousness of the common good after proper discussion and
deliberation. The chief attribute of the general will not it was sovereign power but pursuit of
common interests and its public spiritedness. The character of the general will is determined by
two elements: first it aims at the general good, and second, it must come from all and apply to all.
The first refers to the object of the will; the second, to its origin.
Rousseau also makes differences between will of all and general will. There is often a great
deal of differences between the will of all and the general will. ‘the latter considers only the common
interests, while the former takes private interest into account and is no more than a sum of particular
wills. Thus the will of all is the aggregate of all the wills of the individuals of the community about
their private interest into account and is no more than a sum of particular wills. Thus the will of
all is the aggregate of all the wills of the individuals of the community about their private interest,
wills which partly clash and partly coincide mutually. But the general will represent the aggregate of
these wills which is common to all the citizens. In other words, the essential difference between the
will of all and general will is one of motivation, ie, service to the community without any prejudice or
discrimination.
Unlike nearly all other major political thinkers, Rousseau considers the sovereignty of the
people inalienable and indivisible. The people connote give away or transfer to any person or body
their ultimate right of self government of deciding their own destiny. Whereas Hobbes identified the
sovereign with the ruler who exercises’ sovereignty, Rousseau draws a sharp distinction between
sovereignty, which always and wholly resides in the people and government which is but a
temporary agent of the sovereign people. Rousseau believes that the general will would be the
source of all laws. The human being would be truly free it he followed the dictates of the law. He
was categorical that the General will could emerge only in an assembly of equal law makers.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GENERAL WILL
The following are some of the important features of general will . Firstly, Rousseau’s general will is
permanent It is rational and not impulsive. It is not eternal but permanent and imparts stability to
national institutions. Secondly, Rousseau locates sovereignty in the general will. General will and
sovereignty are inalienable just as life of the individual is inalienable. Whereas in Locke the people
transfer the exercise of their sovereign authority, legislative, executive and judicial to organs of
government, Rousseau’s concept of inalienable and indivisible sovereignty does not permit the
people to transfer their legislative function, the supreme authority in the state As to the executive
and judicial functions, Rousseau realises that they have to be exercised by special organs of
government but they are completely subordinate to the sovereign people.
Thirdly, Rousseau’s general will is unitary because it is not self contradictory. It gives a touch of
unity to national character. Nextly, general will is unrepresent able because sovereignty lies in the
community which is a collective body and cannot be represented but by itself: As soon as a nation
appoints representatives, it is no longer free, it no longer exists.
Finally, the general will is infallible. Rousseau means little more than that the general will
must always seek the general good. He says the general will is always right and tends to the public
advantage. If the general will is always right, it is not always known. It does not follow that the
deliberations of the people are always equally correct.
Rousseau saw the government as an agent of the General will, the sovereign entity in the
body polity. Like Montesquieu, he believed all forms of government were not suited to all countries.
A government had to reflect the character of a country and its people.
According to William Ebenstein, Rousseau’s concept of sovereignty differs from both Hobbes’
and Locke’s In Hobbes the people set up a sovereign and transfer all power to him In Locke’s
social contract, the people set up a limited government for limited purposes, but Locke shuns the
conception of sovereignty - popular or monarchical – as a symbol of political absolutism.
Rousseau’s sovereign is the people constituted as a political community through the social contract.
Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty is not only different from Locke’s , it is in fact a through
going critique of the whole tradition of Lockean liberal democracy. For while Locke recognises the
principle of popular sovereignty in theory, he rejects it in practice, says Rousseau In point of fact ,
Locke’s contract does not give the legislative power to the people, but to a representative
legislature. As such, sovereign belongs to the elected representatives, or more precisely to a
majority of representatives rather than to the community as a whole. Thus, Locke actually puts
sovereignty in the hands of a very small minority , thereby denying to the pole that political liberty
that a correct reading of the contract shows they rightfully ought to possess.

SOCIAL CONTRACT
Though Rousseau criticised civil society, he did not suggest man to choose the savage
existence, as some of his contemporaries mistook him. The main concern of the social contract is
the central issue of all political speculation: Political obligation. ‘The Problem’ Rousseau says’ “is
to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the
person and goods of each associate, and in which each while uniting himself with all may still obey
himself along, and remain as free as before”.
Like his predecessors, Rousseau uses the conceptions of the state of nature and the social
contract that puts to end to it. Rousseau’s conception of man’s life in the state of nature is not
quite so gloomy as that of Hobbes’ nor as optimistic as that of Locke. Each man pursues his self-
interest in the state of nature until he discovers that his power to preserve himself individually
against the threats and hindrances of others is not strong enough Rousseau’s social contract opens
thus: ‘ Man is born free and he is everywhere in chains’ His purpose is how to make the chains
legitimate in place of the illegitimate chains of the contemporary society.
The purpose of the social contract is thus to combine security which comes from collective
association, with liberty which the individual had before the making of the contract. But the social
contract consists in the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole
community.’ Each man gives himself to all, he gives himself to nobody in particular.
In Rousseau’s social contract man does not surrender completely to a sovereign ruler, but
each man gives himself to all, and therefore gives himself to nobody in particular. Rousseau
shows in the social contract a much greater appreciation of civil society as compared with the state
of nature than he showed in his earlier writings. As a result of the contract, private person ceases
to exist for the contract produces a moral and collective Body, which receives from the same act its
unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person formed from the union of all
particular individuals is the state when it is passive,; the sovereign when it is active, a power when
compared with similar institutions.
ASSESSMENT
There was no denying the fact that Rousseau‘s political philosophy was one of the most
innovative striking and brilliant argued theories. His most important achievement was that he
understood the pivotal problem that faced individuals in society - how to reconcile individual
interests with those of the larger interests of the society. Rousseau is the first modern writer to
attempt, not always successfully to synthesise good government with self government in the key
concept of General will.
Rousseau’s influence has changed over the last three centuries. In the 18th century he was
seen as critique of the statusquo, challenging the concept of progress, the core of the
enlightenment belief structure. In the 19th century, he was seen as the apostle of the French
revolution and the founder of the romantic movement. In the 20th century he has been hailed as the
founder of democratic tradition, while at the same time assailed for being the philosophical
inspiration of totalitarianism.

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What are the main points about Plato discussed in the text?

What are the main points about Plato discussed in the text?

How does Rousseau view the state of nature?

How does Rousseau view the state of nature?

MODULE I

A - PLATO (427-347 BC)

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An assessment of Plato’s Political Philosophy

Aristotle (384 -322 BC)

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1. Dialogues and other works of a popular character;

2. Collection of facts and materials from scientific treatment,

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Aristotle’s conservative viewpoint is clearly expressed in his conception of citizenship. Aristotle

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1. Monarchy- with supreme virtue as its Tyranny – representing

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2. The objectives in mind;

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MACHIAVELLI is known as the father of modern political science. He is a transitional figure

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