Western Political Thought

B.
A POLITICAL SCIENCE
FIFTH SEMESTER
WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

PSC.05
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LOYOLA COLLEGE
WILLIAMNAGAR
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WESTERN POLITICLA THOUGHT LOYOLA COLLEGE, WILLIAMNAGAR Page 1

SYLLABUS
WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT
Objectives
To enhance the students about the classical tradition in political theory from Plato to
Marx with a view to understand how great thinkers explained and analyzed political events
and problems of their times and prescribed solutions. The texts are to be interpreted both in
their historical and philosophical perspectives to understand the universality of the enterprise
of political theorizing.
The main objective of this course is to make the students able to;
 Acquire information regarding the history of political theory with the help of logical
reasoning.
 To understand the key concepts and ideas with respect to political philosophy.
 To apply the knowledge of political ideas and assess their relevance in the modern
world.
UNIT TOPICS
1. Greek Political Thought:
Plato – Law, Justice & Communism
Aristotle – Slavery, State on Revolution
2. Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics
3. Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, State of nature, Social Contract
4. J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of Women
5. Hegel: Dialectics, State, Freedom
6. Marx: Historical Materialism, State and Class Struggle

Units Contents Page No.
1. Greek Political Thought: 7
1.1. PLATO
Introduction
1.1.1. Early Life
1.1.2. Plato’s concept of Law
1.1.3. Plato’s concept of Justice
1.1.4. Plato’s concept of communism
1.1.5. Forms of Communism
1.1.6. Summary
1.2. Aristotle
Introduction
1.2.1. Early Life
1.2.2. Aristotle’s view on Slavery
1.2.3. Aristotle’s view of State on Revolution
1.2.4. Methods to prevent Revolutions
1.2.5. Summary
1.2.6. Review Questions
1.2.7. Further Readings
2. Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics 27
2.1. Niccolo Machiavelli
Introduction
2.2. Early Life
2.3. Important Works
2.4. Machiavelli’s view of Human nature

2.5. Criticism of Machiavelli’s idea of Human Nature
2.6. Machiavelli’s view on State craft
2.7. Machiavelli’s view on Religion and Politics
2.8. Summary
2.9. Review Questions
2.10. Further Readings
3. Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, State of nature, Social Contract 44
3.1. Thomas Hobbes (5th April 1588 – 4th December 1679)
Introduction
3.1.1. Early life and Education
3.1.2. Ethics and Human Nature
3.1.3. The State of nature
3.1.4. The Laws of Nature and the Social Contract
3.1.5. Why should we obey the Sovereign?
3.1.6. Summary
3.2. John Locke (29th August 1632 – 28th October 1704)
Introduction
3.2.1. Human nature
3.2.3. Natural rights and Property
3.2.4. Causes of Contract
3.2.5. The Social Contract
3.2.6. Two Contracts
3.2.7. Summary
3.3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28th June 1712 – 2nd July 1778)
Introduction
3.3.1. Early Life

3.3.2. Important Works
3.3.3. The State of Nature
3.3.5. Rousseau’s General Will
3.3.6. Summary
4. J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of Women 87
4.1. John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873)
Introduction
4.1.1. Early life and career
4.1.2. Mill’s View on liberty
4.1.3. Mill’s concept of Representative government
4.1.4. Mill’s view on Position of women
4.1.5. Summary
5. Hegel: Dialectics, State, Freedom 96
5.1. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27th August 1770 – 14th November 1831)
Introduction
5.1.1. Early life
5.1.2. Hegel’s dialectical method
5.1.3. Hegel’s view of State
5.1.4. Hegel’s view of Freedom
5.1.5. Summary

6. Marx: Historical Materialism, State and Class Struggle 103
6.1. Karl Marx (5th May 1818 – 14th March 1883)
Introduction
6.1.1. Early years
6.1.2. Marx’s Historical materialism
6.1.3. Marxian concept of State
6.1.4. Marxian concept of class-struggle
6.1.5. Summary
*Questions Bank – University 110
*Model Answers 114
***

Unit – 1: Greek Political Thought; Plato - Law, Justice & Communism.
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Unit – 1
Greek Political Thought
Plato – Law, Justice and Communism
1.1. PLATO
Introduction
Plato, (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens), ancient Greek
philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and
founder of the Academy, best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled
influence. Building on the demonstration by Socrates that those regarded as experts in ethical
matters did not have the understanding necessary for a good human life, Plato introduced the
idea that their mistakes were due to their not engaging properly with a class of entities he
called forms, chief examples of which were Justice, Beauty, and Equality.
Whereas other thinkers and Plato himself in certain passages used the term without any
precise technical force, Plato in the course of his career came to devote specialized attention
to these entities. As he conceived them, they were accessible not to the senses but to the mind
alone, and they were the most important constituents of reality, underlying the existence of
the sensible world and giving it what intelligibility it has.
In metaphysics Plato envisioned a systematic, rational treatment of the forms and their
interrelations, starting with the most fundamental among them (the Good, or the One); in
ethics and moral psychology he developed the view that the good life requires not just a
certain kind of knowledge (as Socrates had suggested) but also habituation to healthy
emotional responses and therefore harmony between the three parts of the soul (according to
Plato, reason, spirit, and appetite).
His works also contain discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology,
epistemology, and the philosophy of language. His school fostered research not just in
philosophy narrowly conceived but in a wide range of endeavors that today would be called
mathematical or scientific.
1.1.1. Early Life

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The son of Ariston (his father) and Perictione (his mother), Plato was born in the year after
the death of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. His brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus are
portrayed as interlocutors in Plato’s masterpiece the Republic, and his half brother Antiphon
figures in the Parmenides.
Plato’s family was aristocratic and distinguished: his father’s side claimed descent from the
God Poseidon, and his mother’s side was related to the lawgiver Solon (C. 630–560 BCE).
Less creditably, his mother’s close relatives Critias and Charmides were among the Thirty
Tyrants who seized power in Athens and ruled briefly until the restoration of democracy in
403.
Plato, whose dialogues on Truth, Good and Beauty have significantly shaped western thought
and religion, wrote and taught under a nickname. His real name was Aristocles which means
“the best glory” from the ancient Greek aristos meaning the best and kleos meaning glory. It
was claimed that Plato was a nickname (roughly 'the broad') derived either from the width of
his shoulders, the results of training for wrestling, or from the breadth of his style, or from the
size of his forehead.
Plato as a young man was a member of the circle around Socrates. Since the latter wrote
nothing, what is known of his characteristic activity of engaging his fellow citizens (and the
occasional itinerant celebrity) in conversation derives wholly from the writings of others,
most notably Plato.
The works of Plato commonly referred to as “Socratic” represent the sort of thing the
historical Socrates was doing. He would challenge men who supposedly had expertise about
some facet of human excellence to give accounts of these matters—variously of courage,
piety, and so on, or at times of the whole of “virtue”—and they typically failed to maintain
their position.
Plato’s Academy, founded in the 380s, was the ultimate ancestor of the modern university
(hence the English term academic); an influential centre of research and learning, it attracted
many men of outstanding ability. The great mathematicians Theaetetus (417–369 BCE) and
Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 395–c. 342 BCE) were associated with it.
1.1.2. Plato’s concept of Law
According to Plato, “Law means to possess the right reason”. As such, the rulers in the Greek
city-state should be men of intellectual or in other words a Philosopher. He believes that in
any city-state, there exist three main components of administration namely the Rulers, the
warriors and the Producers. And so, the government by law becomes supreme as it applies to
both the rulers and the subject. It is unlike any Monarchical system of government where the
Kings cannot be questioned as they exercise the divine authority to govern the people.

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Plato, unlike Socrates is of the view that Laws in the city-state should be prolific dealing with
the specific details of possible and potential conflicts between the public and private interest.
It is to say that, laws are not meant only for the subject to follow and obey but it is meant for
solving the problems of unjust and unfair existing in the society. As such, both in his
Republic and the Laws, he spoke extensively of the need to curtail the ugly consequences of
inequality and economic power.
He believed that inequality in the society leads to political conflicts and economic power
creates distinction between the rich and the poor. In order to do away with such menace in the
society, it is necessary to have a proper system of administration where every individual will
be assigned with specific duty in accordance to one’s ability and virtue. And so, the theory of
“division of labour” in the society will ultimately solve the problems of social inequality and
existence of economic power.
This division of labour will be the ordering principles in the society where the Slaves will
perform the duty of agricultural production, free men such as merchants and aliens will
perform the duty of trade and industry and the citizens of the polis will perform the duty of
political functions.
Thus, the strong and healthy men will vote for the selection of the Guardians of law. As such,
300 candidates will be selected first through an open election. Later on, from these 300
candidates an exceptional candidate of 100 men will be selected in the second phase of
election. And finally, from these 100 exceptional candidates, 37 candidates will be selected as
the Guardians of the law.
Besides, a nocturnal council will also be initiated consisting of 10 eldest members from the
city-state. And then, from the elected Guardians, the director of education and certain priests
will be chosen in accordance to their virtue.
In addition, the polis was divided into three classes on the basis of wealth namely the rulers,
the soldiers and the artisans. As such, through an elaborate process a council of 360 persons
was chosen by the citizens from each class. Later on, in the 2nd phase of election the
candidates were reduced to 180 and finally 90 candidates were selected through a system of
draw of lots from each category. He also took an account of the topography of the city where
much emphasis was laid on common race, language, law and religion rather than commerce
and industry.
He believed that with a common culture and practices, the city-state would automatically
flourish and thus contribute for the common good. And when the city-state exhibits a
common political ideology, commerce and industry would be establish as according to one’s
need and aspiration.
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Besides, he also looked to education as holding a decisive position, both with regard to the
maintenance of the polis and the improvement of laws. He was of the view that, if education
is imparted with utmost care and sincerity than there will be understanding and proper
implementation of the laws in the polis. And thus, according to him the guardians of the law
were to appoint a committee of women who would than see to the strict adherence of
marriage laws.
It is due to the fact that, family was regarded as the first social institution where human
beings realized their own capacities and qualities. In addition, he holds the view that law is an
essential factor of sustainability in the society and thus it becomes supreme where ruler and
subject alike being subject to law. He also realizes the value of experience of ages and
restores law to a prominent position as it represents the collective experience of the
community.
1.1.3. Plato’s concept of Justice
In his philosophy Plato gives a prominent place to the idea of justice. He was highly
dissatisfied with the prevailing degenerating conditions in Athens for the Athenian
democracy was on the verge of ruin and was ultimately responsible for Socrates's death. The
amateur meddlesomeness and excessive individualism became main targets of Plato's attack.
This attack came in the form of the construction of an ideal society in which justice reigned
supreme as he believed justice to be the remedy for curing these evils.
After criticizing the conventional theories of justice presented differently by Cephalus,

Polymarchus, Thrasymachus and Glaucon, Plato presented his own theory of justice
according to which, individually, justice is a 'human virtue' that makes a person self-
consistent and good; socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society internally
harmonious and good.
And thus, according to him, justice means a kind of specialization in other words, a field or
an area of expertise where an individual is good and perfect at. Plato in his philosophy gives
very important place to the idea of justice. He used the Greek word "Dikaisyne" for justice
which comes very near to the word 'morality' or ‘righteousness’ as it properly includes within
the whole duty of man.
It also covers the whole field of the individual's conduct in so far as it affects others. He
contended that justice is the quality of soul, in virtue of which men set aside the irrational
desire to taste every pleasure and to get a selfish satisfaction out of every object and
accommodated themselves to the discharge of a single function for the general benefit.

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Plato saw in justice the only remedy of saving Athens from decay and ruin, for nothing
agitated him in contemporary affairs more than amateurishness, meddlesomeness and
political selfishness which were rampant in Athens of his day in particular and in the entire
Greek world in general.
In addition, Sophistic teaching of the ethics of self-satisfaction resulted in the excessive

individualism and induced citizens to capture the office of the State for their own selfish
purpose. Eventually, it divided "Athens into two hostile camps namely the rich and the poor;
the Oppressor and the Oppressed. Thus, the nature of justice as propounded by Plato is
regarded as the fundamental principle of well-order society.
It is however, to be noted that before Plato many theories on justice existed. And so, the
inquiry about justice goes from the crudest to the most refined interpretation. It remains
therefore to inquire as to what were the reasons for which he rejected those views.
Thus, before discussing Plato's own concept of justice, it is necessary to analyze those
traditional theories of justice that were rejected by him.
Traditional Theory
This theory on justice was propounded by Cephalus and his son Polemarchus who define it as
speaking the truth and paying what was due to gods and men. It also contended that justice
should be so administered that good is done to the friend and harm to the enemies and
considered justice as an art. Thus, Plato on the other hand, rejected this theory on the ground
that justice means doing good to all and harm to none.
Radicalist theory
It was propounded by Thrasyachus who treated justice as the interest of the stronger. In other
words, it believes in the principle of might is right. As the government is the strongest, it
makes laws according to the convenience of the rulers and justice for the people consists in
seeking the interest of the ruler rather than pursue their own interest.
As such, Plato rejected this concept of justice on the following grounds;
 Justice can never be the interest of the stronger. The government is an art and it must
aim at the perfection of the material – the subjects rather than its own perfection.
 Justice is always better than injustice because a just man is wiser, stronger and
happier than an unjust man and knows his limitations.
 The attitude of extreme individualism does not lead to justice because an individual is
not an independent unit but a part of an order or system.

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 There cannot be two standards of justice – one for the ruler and the other for the
subjects. The concept of justice as according to Plato should encompass a universal
application.
Pragmatic Theory
This theory on justice was propounded by Glaucan. According to him justice is an artificial
thing, a product of the social convention. He further contended that justice is the child of fear
and is based on the necessity of the weak. There was no justice in the pre-civil society and it
is the weaker sections that joined hand to create the state. Therefore justice is not the interest
of the stronger but the necessity of the weak. As such, Plato criticizes this theory because it
assumes justice as something external or an importation.
After discarding the prevailing notions of justice Plato gives his own concept of justice.
According to him, justice resides both in the individual as well as in the society. As justice in
the state exist in a bigger and more visible form he tries to explain it with the help of State.
According to him, like human mind, the state has three ingredients namely reason, spirit and
appetite which are represented by the rulers, soldiers and farmers respectively. He holds that
each of these three elements makes a valuable contribution towards the creation of the state.
And so, justice for the society can be realize if each group performs the functions which it is
best suited to perform without interfering in the sphere of the others.
Thus, justice implies a sort of specialization and the principle of non-interference and
harmony. It is the bond which holds a society together, a harmonious union of individuals,
each of whom has found his life-work in accordance with his natural fitness and his training.
It is both a public and private virtue because the highest good both of the state and its
members is hereby conserved.
For example, the reason should rule on behalf of the entire soul with wisdom and
forethought. The element of spirit will sub-ordinate itself to the rule of reason. Those two
elements are brought into harmony by a combination of mental and bodily training. They are
set in command over the appetites which forms the greater part of man's soul.
Therefore, the reason and spirit have to control these appetites which are likely to grow on
the bodily pleasures. These appetites should not be allowed to enslave the other elements and
usurp the dominion to which they have no right. When all these three agrees that among
them, the reason alone should rule, there is justice within the individual.
Thus, Plato’s concept of justice is based on three principles namely the functional
specialization – allotment of specific function to each according to his capacity and merit,

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non-interference by various classes in each other’s sphere of duty and concentration on its
own duties and finally the harmony between the three classes representing wisdom, courage
and temperance respectively.
As such, in corresponding to these three elements in human nature there are three classes in
the social organism namely Philosopher class or the ruling class which is the representative of
reason; an Auxiliaries, a class of warriors and defenders of the country is the representative of
spirit; and the appetite instinct of the community which consists of farmers and artisans and is
the lowest rung of the ladder.
Thus, weaving a web between the human organism and the social organism, Plato asserts that
functional specialization demands from every social class to specialize itself in the station of
life allotted to it. Justice, therefore to Plato is like a manuscript which exists in two copies,
and one of these is larger than the other.
It exists both in the individual and the society. But it exists on a larger scale and in more
visible form in the society. Individually "justice is a 'human virtue' that makes a man self
consistent and good. Socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society internally
harmonious and good." Justice is thus a kind of specialization. It is simply the will to fulfill
the duties of one's station and not to meddle with the duties of another station, and its
habitation.
It is, therefore, in the mind of every citizen who does his duties in his appointed place. It is
the original principle, laid down at the foundation of the State, "that one man should practice
one thing only and that the thing to which his nature was best adopted". True justice to Plato,
therefore, consists in the principle of non-interference. The State has been considered by
Plato as a perfect whole in which each individual which is its element, functions not for itself
but for the health of the whole.
Every element fulfils its appropriate function. Justice in the Platonic state would, therefore,
be like that harmony of relationship where the Planets are held together in the orderly
movement. Plato was convinced that a society which is so organized is fit for survival. Where
men are out of their natural places, there the co-ordination of parts is destroyed, the society
disintegrates and dissolves.
Justice, therefore, is the citizen sense of duties. Justice is, for Plato, at once a part of human
virtue and the bond, which joins man together in society. It is the identical quality that makes
good and social. Justice is an order and duty of the parts of the soul; it is to the soul as health
is to the body. Plato says that justice is not mere strength, but it is a harmonious strength.
Justice is not the right of the stronger but the effective harmony of the whole. All moral
conceptions revolve about the good of the whole individual as well as social.

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1.1.4. Plato’s concept of communism
Communism is a political and economic ideology that positions itself in opposition to liberal
democracy and capitalism, advocating instead for a classless system in which the means of
production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.
"Communism" is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of ideologies. The term's
modern usage originated with Victor d'Hupay, an 18th-century French aristocrat who
advocated living in "communes" in which all property would be shared, and "all may benefit
from everybody's work." The idea was hardly new even at that time, however: the Book of
Acts describes first-century Christian communities holding property in common according to
a system known as koinonia, which inspired later religious groups such as the 17th-
century English "Diggers" to reject private ownership.
 Communism is an economic ideology that advocates for a classless society in which

all property and wealth are communally-owned, instead of by individuals.
 The communist ideology was developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and is the
opposite of a capitalist one, which relies on democracy and production of capital to
form a society.
 Prominent examples of communism were the Soviet Union and China. While the
former collapsed in 1991, the latter has drastically revised its economic system to
include elements of capitalism.
The concept of communism as according to Plato was certainly a corollary of his conception
of justice. He believed that without communism there would be clash of ideas and interests
between reason and appetite. His communism is based on the premise that the object of desire
such as property, family instincts and private interests would distract man’s attention from his
obligations to the community and hence it should be removed.
He strongly opined that family and property are always impediments not only to philosopher
king, but also to the common people in discharging their duties. As property and family
relationships seemed to be the main source of dissension in the society, Plato stated that
neither of them must be given any recognition in an ideal state.
Therefore, a sort of communism of family and property was essential to offset the
consequences of Plato’s design of ideal state. He believed that an economic division amongst
the citizens of the state is the most dangerous political condition. This belief was mainly due
to the widespread and common opinions expressed by the Greeks that economic motives are
very influential in determining political action and affiliations.
As such, long before The Republic was written, Euripides had divided citizens into three
classes namely the useless rich—who are always greedy for more, the poor—who have
nothing and are devoured by envy, and finally the middle class—a strong body of men who

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saves the state. And so an Oligarchic state to the Greeks meant a state governed by and in the
interest of the well-born whose possession of property was hereditary, while a democratic
state was governed by and for the many that had neither hereditary birth nor property.
These economic differences were the key to the political institutions and it was no new idea,
which the Greeks were following since ages. The cause for unrest that Plato was experiencing
in Athens was mainly due to the troubles present since the days of Solon a statesman reforms
in Athens.
This situation convinced Plato that wealth has a very pernicious effect on the government, but
was dismayed at the fact that there was no way to abolish the object of desire except by
abolishing the wealth itself. To cure greed among the rulers, there is only one way and that
was to deny them any right to call anything their own. Devotion to their civic duties admits
no private rival.
Thus, the example of Sparta, wherein the citizens were denied the use of money and the
privilege of engaging in trade, undoubtedly influenced Plato in reaching this conclusion. The
main reason for Plato to emphasize on communism of property was to bring about greater
degree of unity in the state.
Therefore, Plato was equally vehement about the institution of marriage and opined that
family affections directed towards a particular persons, as another potent rival to the state in
competing for the loyalty of rulers.
He stated that anxiety for one’s children is a form of self-seeking more dangerous than the
desire for property, and the training of children at homes as a poor preparation for the whole
and sole devotion, which the state has the right to demand. Plato was, in fact, appalled by the
casualness of human mating which according to him would not be tolerated in the breeding of
any domestic animal.
And so, the improvement of the race demands a more controlled and a more selective type of
union. Finally, the abolition of marriage was probably an implied criticism of the position of
women in Athens, where her activities were summed up in keeping the house and rearing
children.
To this, Plato denied that the state serve half of its potential guardians. Moreover, he was
unable to see that there is anything in the natural capacity of women that corresponds to the
Athenian practice. Since many women were as well qualified as men to take part in political
or even military duties, the women of the guardian class will consequently share the work of
the men, which make it necessary that both shall receive the same education and strictly be
free from domestic duties.

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Plato’s argument about breeding of domestic animals refers to the sexual relations between
men and women. It is not that he regarded sex casually, but he demanded an amount of self-
control that has never been realized among any large populations. According to him, if the
unity of the state has to be secured, the object of desire such as property and family stand in
the way, therefore, they both must be abolished.
1.1.5. Forms of Communism
Plato’s communism is of two forms namely the abolition of private property, which included
house, land and money and the second, the abolition of family. Through the abolition of these
two, Plato attempted to create a new social order wherein the ruling class surrendered both
family and private property and embraced a system of communism. This practice of
communism is only meant for the ruling class and the guardian class.
However, Plato did not bind this principle on the third class, namely, the artisans. In other
words, they were allowed to maintain property and family, but were under strict supervision
so that they do not become either too rich or too poor. Though Plato structured the society in
this manner, he never made any attempt to work out his plan that ensured such a system to
function.
The following is a brief description of each form of communism:
Communism of Property
Plato’s communism of property is in no way related to the modern communism or socialism

because there was no mention of socialization of the means of production. His approach was
mainly concerned with one factor of production, that is, property that has to be socialized.
The land and its products were in the hands of the farmers. And so, only the guardians were
deprived of property. He deprived them of all valuables such as gold and silver, and was told
that the diviner metal is within them, and therefore there is no need for any ornaments as it
might pollute the divine thoughts.
The guardians on the other hand, were paid salaries just right enough for their maintenance.
They were expected to dine at common tables and live in common barracks, which were
always open. Thus, Plato’s communism was ascetic in character. His communism existed
only for the governing class. And therefore, it was political communism and not an economic
communism.
Communism of Wives
Plato’s scheme of communism deprived the guardian class not only of property, but also a
private life or a family because family introduced an element of thine and mine. He believed
that family would destroy a sense of cooperation that forms the basis for a state. To destroy

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family, it is important to destroy selfishness. He wanted the rulers of an ideal state not to get
distracted from their work and get tempted towards self-interests.
According to him, family was the great stronghold of selfishness, and for this reason it has to
be banned for the governing class. This situation brings about a question of ‘Did Plato deny
his guardians class a normal sex life?’ For this, he stated that mating was encouraged between
those who can in the best possible manner produce children of the desired quality. Another
question that was raised was related to those children who were born out of this union.
According to him, they would be the property of the state. Immediately after their birth, they
would be taken to a nursery and nursed and nurtured there. This method would make sure
that no parent would have any affection upon one child, and thus love all the children as their
own.
Furthermore, the guardians instead of caring for the welfare of their progeny would thrive for
the welfare of all. Thus, guardians of the state would constitute one great family wherein all
children would be treated equal and common. Bound by common joys and sorrow, there is
personal or exclusive relation to one family and in the process the entire state.
He further stipulated the age for both men and women for begetting children. He stated that
the proper age for begetting children, women should be between the age of 20 and 40 and
men between 25 and 55 because at this time, the physical and intellectual vigor is more.
If anybody flouted the rules, they were treated as unholy and unrighteous beings. Thus,
Plato’s communism of wives provided social, political and psychological bases for the ideal
state. He believed that such a communism of family would remove the conflict between the
personal interests and the objectives of the state.
His theory of communism or Koinonia of property for the rulers of his ideal state was later
taken up, rightly or wrongly, as a blue-print for several modern political manifestos. It was
put into practice in communities as diverse as collective farms and religious cloisters. Even
his extension of this principle to a communism of wives served many a hair brained
commune of hippies in the 1960.
1.1.6. Summary
The work most people are interested in is The Republic (c. 380 BC). Arguably Plato’s
magnum opus, the dialogue preaches Plato’s idea of a perfect society. Right off the bat, we
know it will not be a kind democracy, for as explained in the exposition, he hated democracy.
This utopian society was separated into a hierarchy, almost like the Indian caste system. The
three classes were the philosophers, the warriors, and the workers.

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At the top were the kings, fittingly called philosopher kings. Perhaps Plato was a bit biased
making philosophers kings but for good reason. He claimed that philosophers would make
great rulers because one, they were wise and would make decisions that hoi polloi (Greek
slang for common folk) would not be able to, and two they had access to The Good. As
lovers of wisdom (philosophers), the kings could see Forms. Below the kings were warriors.
Warriors were important to the society because they provided protection and enforced the
law. Only the philosophers and warriors had the right to education. Lastly, the workers were
the artisans who made products. Less important, they did not get many rights. Woman and
children did not get many rights, either.
In addition, art was forbidden and children were practically abducted. The Republic was a
communal society, so anyone could live in another’s home. Upon birth, children were taken
from their homes to be educated by the philosophers. Clearly, Plato had no faith in parents.
Art, he espoused, was a crude and disrespectful representation of the Forms. They had no
right to tarnish such perfection.
1.2. Aristotle
Introduction
Aristotle, in Greek Aristoteles, (Born 384 BCE, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece – died 322,
Chalcis, Euboea), was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest
intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific
system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval
Islamic philosophy.
Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the
Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking. Aristotle’s
intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts, including
biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind
and science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology.
He was the founder of formal logic, devising for it a finished system that for centuries was
regarded as the sum of the discipline and he pioneered the study of zoology, both
observational and theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th
century. But he is, of course, most outstanding as a philosopher. His writings in ethics and
political theory as well as in metaphysics and the philosophy of science continue to be
studied, and his work remains a powerful current in contemporary philosophical debate.
1.2.1. Early Life

The Academy
Aristotle was born on the Chalcidic peninsula of Macedonia, in northern Greece. His father,
Nicomachus, was the physician of Amyntas III (reigned c. 393–c. 370 BCE), king of
Macedonia and grandfather of Alexander the Great (reigned 336–323 BCE). After his
father’s death in 367, Aristotle migrated to Athens, where he joined the Academy of Plato (c.
428–c. 348 BCE). He remained there for 20 years as Plato’s pupil and colleague. Many of
Plato’s later dialogues date from these decades, and they may reflect Aristotle’s contributions
to philosophical debate at the Academy.
Some of Aristotle’s writings also belong to this period, though mostly they survive only in
fragments. Like his master, Aristotle wrote initially in dialogue form, and his early ideas
show a strong Platonic influence. His dialogue Eudemus, for example, reflects the Platonic
view of the soul as imprisoned in the body and as capable of a happier life only when the
body has been left behind.
1.2.2. Aristotle’s view on Slavery

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According to Aristotle, “Natural slaves are those who understand reason but possess no
reason”. As such, he strongly believed and justified the institution of slavery. He opined
slaves as the possession of the family or, in other words, was considered the property of the
master or the family. He stated that slavery is natural and beneficial to both the masters as
well as the slaves.
He was of the belief that the slaves have no reasoning power despite the ability to understand
and follow their intellect. Therefore, according to Aristotle, natural slaves are those who
understand reason but possess no reasoning ability.
The logic given by him was that those who were not virtuous were slaves and that it was
possible to determine who is virtuous and who is not. He further stated that as there are
inequalities with reference to their capabilities and capacities, all those who had higher
capacities were called masters and the rest are slaves.
He therefore, categorically stated that slave belonged to the master and not vice versa. And
thus, according to Aristotle, slaves are;
i. Natural: Slavery is a natural phenomenon. The superior would rule over the inferior
just as the soul rules over the body and reason over appetite. In other words, people
with superior reasoning powers would rule over those inferior in reasoning. The

masters are stated to be physically and mentally strong than the slaves. So, this set-up
naturally makes the former the master, and the latter the slave.
ii. Necessary: Slaves are considered necessary because they provide leisure that was
most essential for the welfare of the state. Aristotle stated that slavery benefited the
slaves as well. Simply because by being a slave, he would be able to share the virtues
of the master and elevate himself.
iii. Expediency: Aristotle was of the opinion that slaves have sustained the Greek social
and economic system, and they helped Greece against social disorder and chaos. He
stated that slavery is a social necessity. It was complementary to the slaves as well as
the masters and that it adds in perfection. According to Aristotle, State is made up of
house-holds which consist of freemen and slaves, husbands and wives and their
children. Thus, slavery is an institution and slaves are a part of the institution.
It was rampant in his days and was part and parcel of national and domestic economy.
According to him, “a slave was a living possession and instrument of action in the hands of
his master. A slave being a living creature like any other servant is a tool worth many tools.
The slave is a tool with life in it. The tool is lifeless slave". He opined that some people
regard slavery as unjust and contrary to nature which in his opinion is wrong.
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According to him, slavery is quite in accord with the law of nature and the principles of
justification. His argument is that men differ from each other in capacity. There are those
whose high endowment of reason fits them to command and direct; there are those whose low
intellect enables them to comprehend and obey orders only. The former are by nature,
masters and the latter by nature slaves. One represents the mental strength and the other
physical strength.
As such, a slave lacks the capacity to reason sufficiently to govern himself although he may
recognize such capacity in others. Physical distinctions also separate master and slave. The
former can serve in the military and hold public office whereas the latter is capable of
performing only the menial duties of life. Thus he who can foresee with his mind is by nature
intended to be lord and master; and (lacking) he who can work only with his body is by
nature a slave.
The slave is to the Master what the body is to the mind. Just as the rule of mind over body is
absolute similarly the rule of master over the slave is absolute. It is just that slaves should be
held as property and used as other property is used or maintaining life. He says that a slave is
not only his master's slave but also wholly his master's property. In fact in his “Ethics” he
suggested that a slave could become his master’s friend simply because they share the most
part of their life time together as belonging to one family.

And so, a citizen needs slaves for the development of his moral and intellectual excellence of
which he is capable of. But the development of these faculties demands leisure, which can be
achieved only when a man has Slaves. Thus, a citizen cannot lead a good life without slaves.
A slave according to Aristotle in a way, shares his master's life and therefore his master's
excellence. As such, his theory of slavery was mainly based on two assumptions; first, Men
were divided in respect of their capacities for virtue and second, that it was possible to
determine the category to which an individual belonged to.
Thus, in book VII of his “Politics”, he finally recommended for the emancipation of the
slaves as a reward for good service because he realizes that the institution of slavery was not
permanent and hence, at certain point of time there will be advancement in the field of
technology.
Subsequently, in his defence to the concept of slavery, he opined that a person can be
enslaved only under the following conditions;
1. Only those who were mentally deficient and virtuously not superior should be
enslaved. He, however, never agreed to the enslavement of prisoners of war because
victory in the war does not necessarily mean intellectual superiority of the victor or
the mental deficiency of the vanquished. He was against the idea of slavery by force.

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2. Aristotle insisted that masters must treat their slaves properly, and strongly propa-
gated that cruel masters must be subjected to legal punishments.
3. He advocated the liberation of only those slaves whose conduct was good and who
developed capacity for reasoning and virtue.
4. Slavery was essential for the all-round development but the master has no right to
misuse his power. Slaves are only assistants but not subordinates.
5. He makes a distinction between a slave by nature and a slave by law. A slave by law
is a prisoner in war and a slave by nature is a barbarians.
6. Aristotle further mentions that it is not necessary that the child of a slave should
always be a natural slave. If he is superior in his mental capacity, he will be as free as
other free citizens.
7. All the slaves should be given the hope and chance of emancipation.
8. However, he does not allow the enslavement of a Greek by a Greek. He also advises
the masters to treat his slave and not to abuse. The authority he has over his slave
because the interests of the two are the same.
1.2.3. Aristotle’s view of State on Revolution
Aristotle explained in great detail the theory of revolution. It is his study of nearly 158
constitutions that helped him understand the implications of revolutions on a political system.

In his work, Politics, he discussed at length all about revolutions. Based on his study,
Aristotle gave a scientific analysis and expert treatment to the subject of revolutions. He gave
a very broad meaning to the term ‘revolution’ which meant two things to him.
Firstly, it implies any major or minor change in the constitution such as a change in
Monarchy or Oligarchy and so on. Secondly, it implies a change in the ruling power even
though it did not lead to a change in the government or the constitution. He further stated that
a revolution could be either direct or indirect, thereby affecting a particular institution.
As such, some of the causes of Revolution as according to Aristotle are in the form of two
categories namely general and particular.
General Causes
According to Aristotle, revolutions take place when the political order fails to correspond to
the distribution of property and hence tensions arise in the class structure, eventually leading
to revolutions. Arguments over justice are at the heart of the revolution. Generally speaking,
the cause of revolution is a desire on the part of those who are devoid of virtue and who are
motivated by an urge to possess property, which is in the name of their opponents. In other
words, the cause of upheaval is inequality. He listed certain general causes of revolutions that
affect all types of governments and states.

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They are; the mental state or feelings of those who revolt; the motive, which they desire to
fulfill and the immediate source or occasion of revolutionary outburst. As such, the mental
state is nothing but a desire for equality and it is a state of disequilibrium. Another clear
objective of those rebel or revolt is to gain honor. Apart from these, Aristotle provided some
more reasons, which are psychological as well as political in nature that lead to revolutions.
As far as psychological factors are concerned, the following points are note worthy to be
considered.
Such as;
Profit means that the officers of the state try to make illicit gains at the expense of the
individual or of the public. It puts the latter to an undeserved loss and creates a mood of
discontent.
Rebellions occur when men are dishonored rightly or wrongly, when they see others
obtaining honors that they do not deserve and when like-minded people join the movement
when the government fails to redress their grievances.
Revolutions occur when insolence or disrespect is displayed by the other members. A

revolutionary climate would be soon created, especially when the state officials become

haughty, arrogant and drunk with power, or pay no attention to the genuine problems of the
people. This leads to a deep divide in the society especially between the state and the people.
Over a period of time, people’s complaints against corrupt officials increase which culminate
into revolutions.
Fear is a genuine and a worst enemy of man and human institutions. It disturbs peace of mind
and other emotions. Revolutions can occur either out of fear of punishment for a wrong
actually committed or a fear of an expected wrong to be inflicted on the person who is afraid.
Contempt is closely related to revolution. This contempt can be towards rules, laws, political
and economic situations, social and economic order. The contempt is also due to inequalities,
injustices, lack of certain privileges and so on.
Finally, revolutions are also the result of imbalances in the disproportionate increase in the
power of the state that creates a gap between the constitution and the society.
In the end, the constitution reflects social realities, the balances of social and economic
forces. If this balance is disturbed, the constitution is shaken and it will either get modified or
will perish. For instance, if the number of poor people increases, the polity may be destroyed.
Similarly, if there are more numbers of rich in the government, it may lead to an Oligarchical
set-up. Thus, any sharp differences in the polity would result in revolutions.

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Subsequently, with regard to the political factors, issues such as elections intrigues,
carelessness, neglecting small changes, growth in reputation and power of some office, or
even balance of parties lead to deadlock and finally foreign influence.
Such as;
Election maneuvering greatly disturbs people’s faith in the constitutional process. If they
succeed, they prevent the constitution from functioning efficiently or else they create much
more troubles. These election manipulations not only frustrate the public opinion, but also
destroy virtue and good life and they generate new social issues such as corruption, bribery,
nepotism, favoritism and so on.
The foundations of the state can be devastated due to carelessness or willful negligence
leading to revolutions. If the rulers are careless while selecting the officials, anti-social
elements would creep in and subvert the entire constitution. In such conditions, a trivial
matter of just selecting suitable officials with little care proves to be the most fatal.
A statesman must never neglect any small issue relating to the governance. If decisions are
made in haste without considering its implication such actions are likely to lead to an uproar.
It is for this reason Aristotle stated that a need for overhauling the entire system actually

comes when small changes are overlooked. He also warned leaders that appearances are
deceptive and can create problems.
With regards to the influence of the powerful neighboring states, which have an impact on the
constitution, especially when the constitution of the other nation happens to be of a different
type or form such as written or unwritten.
Particular Causes
Apart from the general causes of revolution, Aristotle also gave certain specific causes in
various types of states. For instance, in democracies, discontentment is bred by the
demagogues who attack the rich either individually or collectively and build hatred amongst
the people who become revengeful and violent and this situation leads to conflicts.
In oligarchies, revolutions occur when masses experience an unpleasant treatment by the

officials resulting in dissensions within the governing class. Personal disputes may further the
flames of fire and though imperceptible, changes in the class structure of society may
invisibly alter the ethos.
Aristotle further believed that it is not necessary that oligarchy become democracy or vice
versa, but they might change into a completely different system altogether. In aristocracies,
revolutions occur when the circle of the rulers get narrowed down and become thinner and

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thinner. It is, in fact, the disequilibrium in the balance of the different elements or parts of the
constitution that causes revolutions.
As far as the monarchies and the tyrannies are concerned, revolutions are caused by
insolence, resentment of insults, fears, contempt, and desire for fame, influence of
neighboring states, sexual offences and physical infirmities.
1.2.4. Methods to prevent Revolutions
Aristotle in order to ensure that there are lesser chances of revolutions suggested the
following methods to prevent them. He called upon the kings to believe in one principle
maxim that ‘prevention is better than cure’. He wanted the rulers to obey laws even in
smallest matters. He believed that transgression of even in small amounts would sooner or
later result in total disrespect and violation. Further taking cue from the rulers, if people start
breaking the laws, the entire social order would be at stake.
He strongly advised the rulers that they must believe that they can fool some people all the
time, all the people for some time and not all the people all the time. In other words, people

should not be taken for granted, and sooner or later they will explode with suddenness that
might take the rulers by surprise.
He also stated that the rulers must provide due care to all those people in their domain. They
should not discriminate between the officer and commoner, between governing and non-
governing and the like. The principle of democratic equality must be followed.
Furthermore, every citizen must be given a chance to express their opinions about the
government and that the tenure of the officials must be short-term. By this method,
oligarchies and aristocracies would not fall into the hands of the families. As the internal
feuds among the rulers would sap the energy and unity of a state, the ruler must be on
constant vigil and keep all quarrels and seditions among rulers at a distance. No person or
official should either be raised to the highest position or suddenly stunned. There has to be a
balance.
Those who have acquired too much wealth or amassed great wealth must be ostracized or
banished and no single society should be allowed to establish its dominance over the other.
To achieve this, offices must be given to the opposite elements like the rich and the poor, in
order to maintain a balance.
He further stated that public offices must not be made lucrative. By doing this, the poor
would not be attracted and the rich might occupy them without any additional advantage. As
such, the poor would then stick to their work and grow rich, and the rich would occupy
offices without getting richer. Under these conditions, the poor would have satisfaction that
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they all have jobs, and the rich, on the other hand, would be satisfied that they occupied high
positions.
Thus, democracy and aristocracy would be combined to produce a stable polity. The retiring
officer should hand over the charge of public funds to another in public, and the officers
whose performance was good must be honored. He further stated that the rich should not be
allowed to exhibit their riches as it rouses jealousies among others. Finally, a statesman
interested in avoiding revolution must prevent extremes of poverty and wealth, as it is this
condition that leads to conflicts. He must encourage colonization as an outlet for a
dangerously congested population and he should foster and practice religion.
Firstly, he opined that quality ruler would never be able to stop revolutions. So to ensure this
quality, rulers, must be first loyal to constitution. Secondly, they should be competent, able
and worthy and perform their duties.
And thirdly, they must have goodness and justice that is suitable to the nature of each
constitution, if there is any lack of an able person to serve as the ruler, a combination of
persons will also help to prevent revolutions. Besides, he argues that a correct system of

education is the most effective instrument for curbing the revolutionary instinct and preserves
social order.
1.2.5. Summary
Plato and Aristotle can in many ways be seen as defending some fundamental tenets of Greek
ethics (such as the value of justice), but doing so by means of advancing revisionist
philosophical doctrines and distancing themselves from the ways in which those tenets were
interpreted by the democratic institutions of their day.
The range of ethical and political views which they, along with their Hellenistic successors,
laid out, continue to define many of the fundamental choices for modern philosophy, despite
the many important innovations in institutional form and intellectual approach which have
been made since.
Many of those innovations, indeed, came in response to a revival of the ancient skeptical and
relativist challenges: challenges already known from their evolution within ancient political
philosophy itself. Thus, the students of Western political thought generally, with great
interest, study the ancient political thought of ancient Greece and it is believed that there are
reasons behind this.
In the first place the Greek philosophers in their search for knowledge in general and political
philosophy in particular pointed out some basic concepts such as nature of state, its origin,
administration, relation between state and individual in their analysis. Though the contents of
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these concepts have undergone sea-changes during the past two millennia, we still study them
because they evoke our interests.
Q1. Critically examine Plato’s ideas on communism of property.
Q2. Discuss Plato’s ideas on Justice.
Q3. Examine Aristotle’s view on the origin and nature of the State.
Q4. Write a critical note on Plato’s Ideal State.
Q5. Critically analyse Aristotle’s views on Slavery.
Q6. Discuss Aristotle’s views on causes of revolution and measures for its prevention.

1. The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle – Earnest Barker
2. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors – Earnest Barker
Unit – 2: Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics

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Unit – 2
Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics
2.1. Niccolo Machiavelli
Introduction
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) was an Italian philosopher, political
theorist, diplomat, musician and writer of the Renaissance period. He was a central figure in
the political scene of the Italian Renaissance, a tumultuous period of plots, wars between city
states and constantly shifting alliances.
Although he never considered himself a philosopher (and often overtly rejected philosophical
inquiry as irrelevant), many subsequent political philosophers have been influenced by his
ideas. His name has since passed into common usage to refer to any political move that is
devious or cunning in nature, although this probably represents a more extreme view than
Machiavelli actually took.
He is best known today for two main works, the well-known "The Prince" (a treatise on
political realism and a guide on how a ruler can retain control over his subjects), and the
"Discourses on Livy" (the most important work on republicanism in the early modern
period).
2.2. Early Life
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy on 3 May 1469, the second son of Bernardo di
Niccolò Machiavelli (a lawyer) and Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. His family was believed
to be descended from the old Marquesses of Tuscany, and was probably quite wealthy. Little
is known of his early life, but his education (possibly at the University of Florence) left him
with a thorough knowledge of the Latin and Italian classics, and he was trained as a man with
great nobility and severe rigor by his father.
He entered governmental service in Florence as a clerk and ambassador in 1494, the same
year as Florence had restored the republic and expelled the ruling Medici family. He was
soon promoted to Second Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, with responsibility for
diplomatic negotiations and military matters.
Between 1499 and 1512, he undertook a number of diplomatic missions to the court of Louis
XII of France, Ferdinand II of Aragón and the Papacy in Rome. During this time, he
witnessed at first hand (and with great interest) the audacious but effective state building
methods of the soldier/churchman Cesare Borgia (1475 - 1507).
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2.3. Important Works
Machiavelli's best known work, "Il Principe" ("The Prince"), was written in some haste in
1513 while in exile on his farm outside Florence, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de'Medici in
the hope of regaining his status in the Florentine Government. However, it was only formally
published posthumously in 1532. In it, he described the arts by which a Prince (or ruler)
could retain control of his realm.
A "new" prince has a much more difficult task than a hereditary prince, since he must
stabilize his newfound power and build a structure that will endure a task that requires the
Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do immoral things in
order to achieve his goals.
He outlined his criteria for acceptable cruel actions and pointed out the irony in the fact that
good can come from evil actions. Although "The Prince" did not dispense entirely with
morality nor advocate wholesale selfishness or degeneracy, the Catholic Church nevertheless
put the work on its index of prohibited books, and it was viewed very negatively by many
Humanists, such as Erasmus.
It marked a fundamental break between Realism and Idealism. Although never directly stated
in the book, "the end justifies the means" is often quoted as indicative of the Pragmatism or
Instrumentalism that underlies Machiavelli's philosophy. He also touched on totalitarian
themes, arguing that the state is merely an instrument for the benefit of the ruler, who should
have no qualms at using whatever means are at his disposal to keep the citizenry suppressed.
2.4. Machiavelli’s view of Human nature
Machiavelli was a political philosopher from Florence Italy. He lived during the Italian
Renaissance from May 1469 to 1527. This period in time that Machiavelli lived was the
"rebirth" of art in Italy and rediscovery of ancient philosophy, literature and science. His
philosophy about the nature of man is that man possesses both good and bad qualities, but
will lean towards his own self-interests when all things are equal and thus according to him,
man is a fickle (liable to sudden unpredictable change) creature.
He further maintains that “men are simple of mind, and so much dominated by their
immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived;
thus a prince can appear to be merciful, truthful, humane, sincere, and religious. The
advantage of this appearance will be the impression of a just government, even if the
government employs underlying unjust means to accomplish its goals. Men will look at the
end result to consider whether to praise or denounce him. He believed that men will follow a
powerful ruler, and without this power, effective rule seems hard and difficult to accomplish.
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This argument seems logical because we can see in our today’s world; we have punishments
for those who commit crimes. As such, People follow laws because they fear the punishment
that comes with the violation of the existing law. And, that some measure of cruelty is
necessary to maintain order. The repercussions (a remote or indirect consequence of some
action) may not be as extreme as it was back then, but the general idea still exists.
This also ties in with another of Machiavelli’s view, that people are aggressive and
acquisitive in a state of constant strife and anarchy. They are discontent and dissatisfied for
their needs are unlimited. But fortune limits their possessions and capacity for enjoyment.
Thus, according to Machiavelli, human beings are selfish, wicked and opportunists. They are
not social but anti-social animal for they always tries to promote their own self interest. They
are wicked because they are prepared to sacrifice the collective interests to promote their own
interests. In fact, love of novelty and change seems to be the basic nature of all men. They
love their property more than their kiths and kins.
As such, a person can more readily forgive the murder of his father than the confiscation of
his patrimony. They are by nature jealous and cannot see others prosper in life. And so, men
establish government with the strongest and the most courageous becomes the law giver and
leaders as they desire personal safety and security of possessions. Like Aristotle, he also
believed that the government will reshape the individual into just and fair being.
Thus, the nature of human beings is constant for history moved in a cyclical way, alternating
between growth and decay. This enabled an individual to discern the general laws of political
behavior with a view to maximize one’s gain. Simply because there seems to have no
difference between how an individual should live and how they ought to live, for one who
sacrifices what had to be done in favour of what ought to be done usually sowed the seeds of
destruction rather than preservation.
Furthermore, he also pointed out that human mind has a tendency to glorify the past, decry
the present and hope for a better future. Like Aristotle, he also characterized the individual as
a political animal. While Aristotle implied the innate sociability of the human beings, he
referred to the individual’s love for power, reputation, keenness to establish superiority over
others and the innate desire to control and dominate others.
As such, he recognizes the importance of law and order in the lives of an individual provided
by a stable and lawful political community consisting of public-spirited and virtuous citizens.
Such an arrangement would then fulfill human needs of being admired, respected and
remembered. According to Machiavelli a ruler who preserved the state without undermining
or flouting laws or inflicting harm to its people attains fame and respected in all fronts of
human lives. But on the contrary, the absence of civil virtue such as intelligence, know-how
and logic would then leads to moral degradation and corruption.

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Machiavelli had discussed this in the beginning of ‘The Prince’ about the human nature.
Machiavelli had assumed and had given the human nature a dark picture to an extreme that
some think that he had considered humans to that of animals. According to him human nature
is completely selfish and full of ego and that they always think about their own self interest
like the masses desire safety and security and the ruler wants power, and that they are very
selfish to gain and conquer their motives.
He has described humans as bad, evil, selfish, egoistic and depraved. Human wants has no
particular limit, they are greedy, sensual creature, mean, bad and depraved and he even goes
on to saying that a human being only cares for himself, their family and their property and to
conquer this they are ready to do anything even to the extent of forgiving their enemy, he
even says that in order to safeguard their priorities they can even forgive the murder of their
father or any kin for that matter than the seizure of his property or any harm to himself.
Humans love themselves first and then think about other things and that they are not law
abiding citizens. As long as the ruler is providing the m the safety and the security that they
desire that is the safety and security of them, their family and that of their property they are
sated and to also protect from any foreign invaders, and if the ruler is able to do this the
masses are easy to rule and the state is well governed.
According to Machiavelli humans use the state and the government for their own selfish
reason, profit and protection, they immediately start disliking or hating the thing that they
can’t achieve or is difficult to achieve or is out of their reach and will deliberately tend to
avoid or delay it.
Machiavelli also says that human by nature are wicked and aggressive, in the words of
Sabine, “Human nature is moreover, profoundly aggressive and acquisitive, men aim to keep
what they have and to acquire more.”
Neither in power nor in possessions is always in fact limited by natural scarcity. Accordingly
men are always in a condition of strife and competition which threatens an open anarchy
unless checked by the ruthless forces of the state. Machiavelli believes that human beings are
insatiable and mean by nature. Humans are insatiable but full of desires. His view regarding
human nature is that of a high resemblance to that of Hobbes.
Machiavelli’s views regarding politics, religion and morality are essentially based on his
view of human nature. Machiavelli says that, “Men are ungrateful, fickle, deceitful, cowardly
and avaricious.” From this it sums up to the conclusion that a ruler or a monarch should aim
rather to be feared than to be loved. He says that a ruler should protect the people, their
families and their properties and he can rule over them without any hassle.
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Machiavelli quotes:
“Men love at their pleasure, but fear at the pleasure of the prince, who should
therefore depend upon that which in his own, not upon that which is of others. Yet he
may be feared without being hated if he refrains from touching their property and
their woman kind of his subjects, and if he avoids bloodshed excepting when there is
good cause and manifest justification for it is in as much as men more easily forget
the loss of their father than of their property.”
With it he tends to say that man so much is in love with his priorities that he can go to any
extreme and even turn evil to protect it from danger, Machiavelli here also mentions that
apart from property men is also insecure of his women and that if anyone is eyeing their
women they tend to be aggressive and then it comes up to their ego, this idea or thought of
Machiavelli can be seen even today.
Machiavelli’s vie and point of human nature was very materialistic, he had rejected and
turned down the ideologies of the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato who said that the
state aims to make the people virtuous and good, he also dismisses the idea that existed in the
medieval ages that the end of the state is to smooth the way of a man to eternal salvation.
Machiavelli as always was highly criticized for this but according to him, “The end of the
state is material prosperity.”
2.5. Criticism of Machiavelli’s idea of Human Nature
Machiavelli’s concept of human nature is highly criticized by many till today, by various
people and on various grounds. Some of them are being: Man by nature has some virtues and
is not purely selfish. His concept of human nature does not take into consideration the
universal society. His views and ideas regarding human nature are the pure result of the
observations he made and the conditions that prevailed at that particular time in Italy.
According to the quote given by Sabine, “Machiavelli is not so much concerned with badness
or egoism as a general human motive and with its prevalence in Italy as a symptom of social
discordance. To him, Italy stands as an example of corrupt society.” So here the criticism is
that Machiavelli has give the concept of human nature as at his time Italy’s political position
was unbalanced and he had observed and wrote according to that and that his concept might
be limited and not universal.
According to Machiavelli’s concept of human nature man is an animal who is bad and
depraved and that he cannot be reformed by any method. But he is here criticized with
accordance to Plato and Aristotle who has said that throughout with the means of proper
education man can be reformed.
LMS

Machiavelli’s saying that men is ready to sacrifice their kin or relations for the sake and
security of his priorities, but Machiavelli here also says that the top three priorities of man are
life, family and then property, so how can he give up one priority to meet the other. No doubt
that people love their property but they love and have equally deep regard and affection for
their family, kin’s and other relations of blood.
According to all this and keeping in mind the critics it can be said that on the basis of the
above give criticism and discussion Machiavelli cannot be said as completely right, to some
he might me, he and his ideas might be excellent to some but others may oppose it and it
might not be according to their liking and ideology.
But Machiavelli does not create an illusion he speaks and thinks practical and rational and
reflects reality and most of his views are prevalent and can be seen in the present or current
day scenario, as in today’s life we too observed and think that people have become selfish
and that they think mostly about themselves, a lot of examples can be given from our own
personal life and what we observe of that of others.
2.6. Machiavelli’s view on Statecraft
According to Machiavelli, State is the highest form of human association to which every
subject must completely surrender their allegiance. It came into existence to check the selfish
interests of the human beings and as such, it is an artificial creation of the men. It is
indispensable for the promotion of human welfare. It is to be worshipped even by sacrificing
the individual for the interest of the state. A ruler must remember that whatever brings
success is due to power.
As such, the success or failure of a state depends upon the prosperity of its people and thus, a
ruler for acquiring political power can use any type of means. He asserted that a Political
statesman plays important role in organizing state, and providing it with safety and security.
Hence the major theme of “the Prince” is the process of acquiring power. Modern power
politics cannot be taught without referring to Machiavelli’s book “The Prince”.
Besides, “The Discourses” and “The art of war” were Machiavelli’s famous work. It
contains analysis of body politics. “The Prince” is a handbook on the “Art of government”
and “State craft”. Hence it is said that, “The Prince” is not an academic work on political
science but it is a book on the art of governance. It is in the form of advice and addressed to a
ruler.
Thus, Machiavelli favored monarchy rather than Aristocracy or Oligarchy. He suggested for a
strong and unscrupulous prince for Italy. He did not recommend the republican form of
government for Italy, as it presupposes virtuous, honest and patriotic citizens, whereas the
16th century Italians was corrupt and selfish.
LMS

Hence, Machiavelli suggested a strong and powerful ruler for Italy. The central theme of
Machiavelli’s political ideas is power. He highlighted power as an essential ingredient of
politics. According to him moral code of individual prescribed by the church cannot provide
guidelines to the ruler. He said politics is a constant struggle for power. All politics is power
politics.
As such, for Machiavelli absolute state was the End and for this Means was power. He said
the sole aim of the “Prince” was to make the country strong and united, establish peace and
order and expel the foreign invader. To achieve this end any means would be fair and just.
Thus, some of the significant aspects of advice found in Machiavelli’s book “the Prince” to
the ruler can be elaborated as follows;
Machiavelli’s doctrine of Raison D ‟Etat‟
It means “Reason of state‟. It implies actions and policies promoting safety and security of
the state. As the state must preserve itself before it promotes the welfare of its people. For
preserving and safeguarding it all means adopted by the state are justified. According to him,
in politics one is guided by the harsh realities of political life which is a struggle for power
and survival. The actions of the state must be judged only on the basis of “Raison D „Etat”
that is independent, self-sufficient and well ordered and well maintain state.
Machiavelli advised the prince in preserving and safeguarding this type of state where all
means adopted by the state are justified. Prince should give priority to power. Morality and
ethics have different spheres. It cannot be mingled with the reason of the state. To a prince
power of state is of supreme importance. Self sufficiency of the state means the state will
have its own army, a strong and unified government, unity and integrity among the people
and solid economic foundation.
End justifies the Means
It is a very famous statement of Machiavelli which he justified for the “Reason of state”. A
ruler must remember that whatever brings success and power is virtuous even cunningness
and shrewdness is justified. Politics is the most precarious game. It can never be played in a
decent and orderly manner. The state has some primary objectives and responsibilities like
protection of life, maintenance of law and order and looking after well-being of its members.
Hence, the state must have adequate means at its disposal.
State is sovereign, autonomous and non-religious
Machiavelli said that the state is superior to all associations in the human society. It is
sovereign and is autonomous, moral and religious considerations cannot bind the prince. He
is above and outside the morality. He can use religion to realize his ends. Religion cannot
influence politics and the church cannot control the state.
LMS

In fact sovereign state enjoys absolute power over all individuals and institutions. State is
must necessary of all institutions. It stands on a wholly different footing and therefore be
judged by different standards. State power is the end and religion is its organ and instrument.
Nothing is un-earthy in the state, for State came into being to satisfy material interests of the
people. He divorced politics from theology and government from religion. He did not view
the state as having a moral end and purpose but gave importance to man’s worldly life. He
said politics is an independent activity with its own principles and laws.
A prince must combine the qualities of a lion and a fox
Machiavelli advised that the prince should imitate the qualities of fox and lion. The imitation
of the fox (cunningness, foresight) will enable him to visualize his goal and means to achieve
it. The imitation of the lion will give him necessary strength and force to achieve that goal. A
fox might have shrewdness and foresight, but he is powerless without necessary force of a
lion.
Similarly a lion without shrewdness and prudence of a fox would be reckless. Hence, a ruler
who wants to be very successful must combine in himself the qualities of both fox and lion.
He must possess bravery of lion and cunningness of fox, physical force is necessary when
there is anarchy and indiscipline. But law and morality is essential to check selfishness of
people and to generate civic virtues.
Use double standard of morality
Machiavelli uses two sets of politics, one for the ruler and another for his subjects. He said
that morality is not necessary for the ruler. He is creator of law and morality hence he is
above the both. A ruler has primary duty of preserving the state. For this purpose he may use
instruments of lie, conspiracy, killings and massacre because absolute morality is neither
possible nor desirable in politics.
He insisted that morality is essential for people. Only moral citizens willingly obey laws of
the state and sacrifice their lives for their nation. It cultivates civic sense and patriotic spirit.
Thus, Machiavelli prescribes double standard of morality.
Favored despotic ruler
Machiavelli did not recommend the republican form of Government, because republican form
requires virtuous, honest and patriotic citizens. He also advised the prince not to convert his
monarchy into a republic. If his heirs are corrupt and misuse their power for evil purposes.
According to Machiavelli, foundation of Government is the reason of state Government
which is not created by God to punish men for their sin.
LMS

He says that the government is founded upon the weakness and insufficient capacity of men.
If in a society men are corrupt and selfish and the law is powerless, then normal
administration is not possible at all. A superior power is essential for bringing the society into
order. The government with absolute power will then stop the excessive desires and control
our human behavior.
Maintaining a strong army
He recommended constant military preparedness for the preservation of the state. The Prince
should organize a strong army to meet any internal and external threat to his power. Strong
and regular army was must for a state for its own defense. The state tries to build up its own
independent, regular and faithful army.
Such an army should consist of its own citizens and be prepared not only to defend its
national borders but also to expand. The citizens must be trained for army service and there
should be compulsory military training for all able persons.
Human nature is low and ungrateful, so prince must consider this nature of man
According to Machiavelli, rational analysis of politics must begin with an account of human
nature. He viewed the activities of man with special interest and explained human nature. He
asserts men to be a compound of weakness, ungrateful, fear, lust for power and assumed all
men are bad.
Some of the prominent traits of human nature are; there is no limit to human desires. He is
selfish and aggressive. And hence, there is strife and competition. The masses are interested
in security. They realize that only laws of the state can ensure security and so they co-operate
with the state and obey the laws. Thus, a ruler who wants to be successful must ensure
security of life and protection of its people.
People must be restrained by force because force breeds fear. Only force and repression can
keep control and check on the evil tendencies in man. Hence, the method of government
should be force and not persuasion. By nature every human being is ambitious and remains
unsatisfied. No human being is content with his position. He is always after domination.
The enmities and wars are the outcome of this desire. Thus, human nature is selfish, power
hungry, quarrelsome and guided by materialistic considerations. Only fear of punishment is a
powerful bond and it never fails.
The Prince should try to win popularity of his people

LMS
According to Machiavelli, the Prince should try to win popularity, goodwill and affection of
his people. He should keep his subjects materially contented by not taxing them. The prince
should not interfere in age old customs and traditions of his people because by nature people
are conservative. He should not have craving for wealth and women of his own subjects. He
should keep a watchful eye on his dissidents.
A prince must have council of wise men and not of flatterers
A Powerful government and internal unity were essential for any state. The Prince must
choose wise men in his council and should give them full liberty to speak the truth to him. He
must ask them about everything and hear their opinion and afterwards deliberate by himself
in his own way.
Separate politics from religion
Before Machiavelli, medieval political philosophers believed that the religion was the basis
of the state. But Machiavelli emancipated the state completely from the control of the church.
He denied medieval philosophy of religion. He repudiates the theory of Aquinas that man
needs the guidance of the divine law.
He said that only end which man can place before himself is the pursuit of his well being in
his material values of life. He did not view them as having a moral end and purpose but gave
importance to man’s worldly life. He believed that politics is an independent activity with its
own principles and laws.
Moral and religion considerations cannot bind the Prince as state is above and outside the
religion. He does not ignore religion and morality. In the opening chapter of his Discourses,
he says that the Princes who want to maintain themselves must respect all religion and
preserve the purity of it. He said religion is useful only as an organ of the state. He gave only
an instrumental value to religion. He advised the ruler that religion plays important role in the
life of a community.
According to him, religion is necessary for unity and integrity of the people within the state.
Common religion creates a sense of unity among people. Thus, religious rites and beliefs
establish social harmony in the society. It also cultivates a civic sense and patriotic spirit.
Decline of respect for religion among the people is a sign of ruin for the state. He said
religion cannot influence politics and the church cannot control the state. In fact the sovereign
state enjoys absolute power over all individuals and institutions.
LMS

As such the church is subordinate to the state. Thus, Machiavelli separated religion from
politics and paved way for the emergence of the secular state. He was not against the religion
and morality. He only proposes two different standards of morality and placed the sate above
morality and religion.
According to him, state is the highest form of social organization and the most necessary of
all institutions. It stands on a wholly different footing and must therefore be judged by
different standards. He said politics is an independent activity with its own principles and
laws. State is non-religious and secular.
It has its own rules of conduct to follow. Thus, he sanctioned the use of immoral means by
the ruler whenever it was necessary to do so to save the state. The separation of politics from
ethics is the essence of Machiavellian.
Prince must be free from emotions
According to Machiavelli, the Prince should exploit emotions of his people for the purpose of
the state. He should be passive, calculative and opportunist. His suggestion is that a prince
must know how to act as a beast.
Ordered state
In “The Prince” Machiavelli advocated absolutism and an effective government. This

advocacy of absolutism was due to the fact that he had witnessed anarchy, lawlessness,
corruption and misrule that prevailed in Italy of his times. He had witnessed how King
Charles VIII of France had captured Florence without being offered resistance.
Therefore, he advocated a well-organized, ordered and militarily strong state. Without a

strong state, any country had no hope of surviving in international politics. He believed that
an ordered state was the only security against forces of external aggression and internal
chaos.
2.7. Machiavelli’s view on Religion and Politics
Machiavelli’s view on Religion
Before Machiavelli, almost all thinkers and political personalities believed and propagated
and promoted religion as the basis of the state. Plato considered state as the sole priority and
religion to be a moral and an integrated part of the state.
Aristotle too believed that religion was a factor and the basis for the proper administration of
a good and excellent working state, but Machiavelli as being different did too believed in
religion but his idea and the use of religion was totally and intelligently different, he made
religion as the way as a basis for the advancement and the betterment of the state.

LMS
Throughout the middle ages it was the church was the dominant and the supreme and the
major part of the state and the church had political power and ruled the state and the pope of
the church had supreme authority even in the sway of politics, as god was feared and the
church was the creation of the god so the popes or the father were given and was considered
as a dominant authority over the state of affairs to that of the state as that the soul has the
supreme authority over the body.
It was during that time that it was assumes that the church has a superior authority and
position as compare, but Machiavelli was opposed to this idea as he thought of it differently
and with this and his intellectual thoughts he believed and promoted religion but with his own
twist of idea.
It was Machiavelli and his idea that there should be a separation of religion from politics; it
was Machiavelli who divorced religion from politics and segregated them completely from
one another like his separation of ethics and moral from politics. He believed that politics
attached to something is not real politics and that it should be played or governed on one on
one basis.
Machiavelli gave less importance to religion as compared to the state. The state according to
Machiavelli has no important relation to the church but it also has no relation to God or any
other super natural power for the matter of fact, he says that the state needs religion only as
an instrumental object for furthering its own object.
According to Allen, “in Machiavelli’s views the state can be understood only in terms of
human lusts and appetites and that the successful ruler must learn to control these forms.”
As he gave less importance to religion, he at the very same time stated and accepted that
morality has a limited place in the society and that they should and must be both exploited
and preserved. He thus was unmoral and not immoral.
Machiavelli thought that religious factor in the society is a driving force which a clever and
intellectual ruler can use to turn the table in the game of politics and use religion for their
own advantage and growth of the state. For him the ruler should be an intelligent to use
religion in such a way that the masses are happy and so that it is for the better administration
of the state. For this he promoted religion but keeping his own interest and thought in mind.
He was even considered as a person who is against religion and one who does not believes
and because of this he was disliked and opposed many a times. But he always made his
thinking and perception of religion clear. According to Machiavelli religion is a guiding
principle which prevents you from doing or committing anything wrong, religion makes a
person righteous makes them fearful and more law abiding.

LMS
It is usually seen that a religious person is a god fearing person and because of this fear he is
more into religion, the more he is into religion the more he will go according to the religious
teachings and as all the religion teaches good to a person and that they should be just and
moral so the more he is morally developed he will think before doing anything wrong and it
will lead to less wrong doings which also mean less crimes and law breaking.
The lesser the crime the administration would work smoothly and which in turn hails and
makes the state more powerful, so Machiavelli did believe in religion but with a but he added
his own sense of twist there for the betterment of the state.
He on one hand encouraged people to be more and more religious and on the other hand he
also set certain strategies for the ruler to assume and pretend to be merciful, god fearing,
righteous, religious and powerful but when it comes to the state the ruler can and should go to
any extremes for the sake and the security of the state even if he has to be or is considered to
be immoral.
Thus the ruler in order to rule should be highly pretentious and if he pretends to the masses
then they would be easy to rule conditioned that the ruler should protect their initial priorities
regarding safety and security of them their family and their property. Machiavelli’s
separation of religion is an outstanding idea and the way he uses religion for the advancement
of the society and the betterment of the administration is absolutely commendable.
His idea of the ruler as a pretender is so relevant event in today’s time, as politicians and
other influential personalities even though highly corrupted and evil from within tend and try
to make a clear and a white impression to and in front of the masses and hoax them in order
to increase their vote banks or to gain their benefit and profit.
So what Machiavelli had thought and perceived about this centuries ago is still very much
there and prevails in the present context. Thus Machiavelli thought about religion as a
powerful instrument so far that it is in the hands of the wise ruler to sustain and uphold the
national morale of the state.
Machiavelli’s view on Politics
Machiavelli acquired practical experience of politics of his time. He was born in Florence,
Italy in 1469 in a well-to-do family, when Prince Medici was at the height of his power. At
the age of 25, he entered the government service as a clerk chancery. And within a very short
period of time he was appointed as an ambassador and after that he became the secretary of
the king. Thus, he acquired practical experience of politics. His administrative and political
experience determined his views about politics. Machiavelli lived in Renaissance Italy and
was greatly influenced by the new spirit of Renaissance. The intellectual awakening injected
rational scientific approach in every sphere of human life and replaced the faith by reason.

LMS
Italy was the leader of Renaissance, the most modern and urbanized country of Europe during
that time. But in Italy the wealth, intellect and artistic achievements were accompanied by
moral degradation and political chaos. The worst aspect of that period during which
Machiavelli lived was the rampant corruption and selfishness among the Italian rulers and the
church officials.
He represents the culture which was undergoing a period of deep political crisis. Italy
consisted of a very large number of independent states. Some of these states like Florence and
Venice were republics, while others were ruled by despots. As such, internally these states
were the home of fierce political rivalries and personal ambition and externally they were
involved in a constant struggle with one another.
This political division of Italy and the struggle between the states made the country weak and
a prey for the ambitions of the powerful neighboring states of France, Prussia and Spain.
France invaded Italy and defeated the Medici rulers. Machiavelli was an eye witness to this
tragedy. It was out of this traumatic experience that made him conclude that unless Italy was
united under a strong central government, the country would always remain under the threat
of conquest and annexation by neighboring countries.
He was not interested in idealistic conception of the state. His chief interest was concentrated
in the unity of body politics and power. He adopted an empirical method. He seriously
studied the past from 4th to 15th century of the medieval age. This age was characterized by
the Feudal system of governance.
In this system, the king divided his dominions into many parts. Each part was granted to a
noble or tenant chief. There were no common laws and central authority. In short the feudal
system was a confused form of Government. Out of this confusion, Church emerged as the
superior authority which resulted in continuous conflict between the spiritual and temporal
authorities.
As such, the Pope claimed superiority over all the princes where state (civil authority) was
merely the police department of the church. Thus, a true national life could not grow in such
a system. So he surveyed the entire Italian society. The feudalism and the church not only
destroyed the identity and importance of the state, but the state was considered sub-ordinate.
But he completely divorced religion from politics. He broke the medieval tradition that the
political authority is under the control of church. He made the state totally independent of the
church by saying that the state has its own rules of conduct to follow which is highest,
supreme and autonomous. He further said that the state is superior to all associations in the
human society. He rejected the feudal system and propounded all powerful central authority
which is supreme over all institutions. Before him, Aristotle has already separated politics
from philosophy and gave a separate status to political science as a subject.

LMS
But he completely divorced religion from politics and tried to subordinate religion to the
state. He repudiated the theory of Aquinas that man needs the guidance of the divine law. He
said that only end which man can place before himself is the pursuit of his well-being in his
life that is material values. As such, state came into being to satisfy the material needs of the
individuals. He differentiated between public and private morality where Plato and Aristotle
believed in moral nature and ethical ends of the state but he completely disregarded this view
of the state.
According to him, there is vital difference between the ruler and the citizens. He insisted that
morality is essential for the people and not the ruler. Thus, he asserted, “Let the Prince, then
look to the maintenance of the state; the means will always be deemed honorable and will
receive general approbations”.
In other words, he attaches more importance to the reason of state than the principles of
morality. Subsequently, only moral citizens willingly obey laws of the state and sacrifice
their lives for their nation. But morality is not necessary for the ruler. He is the creator of law
and morality and hence he is above the both. A ruler has primary duty of preserving the state.
He may use instruments of lie, conspiracy and killings for the safety of the state.
Thus, he asserted in his Discourses, “when the safety of our country is absolutely at stake
there need be no questions of what is just or unjust, merciful or cruel, praise-worthy or
disgraceful but all other considerations set aside, that course alone is to be taken which may
save our country and maintain its liberty”.
Thus, according to him, absolute morality is neither possible nor desirable in politics. For
example, a corrupt state cannot be reformed without heavy dose of violence. For it is must
that a corrupt and degenerated people would need a shock therapy to revive it. He actually
does not ignore religion and morality but he wants to use the religion and church as an
instrument for creating national customs and habits of creating national thoughts which will
help the state in preserving peace and order and maintaining the stability of the society.
According to him, the Prince must preserve the purity of all religious observances and treat
them with proper reverence. Common religion creates a sense of unity among the people but
decline of respect for religion among the people is a sign of ruin for the state. As such, he
proposed two different standards of morality and placed the state above morality.
The first set of morality is judged by the success in keeping and increasing his power and the
second set is judged by the strength which his conduct imparts to the social groups. Thus, he
divorced politics from theology and Church from politics. He gave the state a non-religious
character. He did not view the state as having a moral end and purpose but gave importance
to man’s worldly life.

LMS
And so, Prof. Maxey said, “in Machiavelli’s eye the state knows no ethics. What it does is
neither ethical nor unethical but entirely non-ethical. It is of neuter gender so far as right and
wrong are concerned”.
In the realm of statecraft and in the affairs of government there is but one criterion by which
to judge the character of an action and that is by its result. If the results are good the action
cannot be called wrong, nor is it necessarily right; the safe thing to do is to call it expedient;
and if the results are bad, to say the action was inexpedient.
2.8. Summary
Machiavelli’s main achievement is his talking about an insoluble dilemma, putting a question
mark in the path of posterity. There is no doubt that he caused a lot of confusion and
exaggeration. He confused the very basic proposition that eventually ideals may be very
different proposition that the traditional conventional human ideals based on ideas of Natural
Law, human goodness, morality and brotherly love.
This was never realized and it was taken for granted that those who acted on the opposite of
these ideals were considered to be not right, at times dangerous ones. Machiavellian
principals are exploited on different other levels than what he had intended for their universal
truth. From political setup to business world, his theories of power have transcended from
these areas to the basic functions of the human beings’ struggle for power.
In the same way the modern governmental principalities understand these, so does the 20th
century corporate tycoon down to the struggling working class. Clearly, acquisition of power
is not the only goal for Machiavelli. His work is beyond that. He professes ways to acquire
and maintain power, be it immoral in the eyes of society but as long as these actions are the
need of the circumstances, they are justified. He talks of how people should acquire virtue,
liberty and also stressed on importance of public speeches.
His teachings might have been criticized so far as being evil but the fact is he was being
bluntly honest, to expose the bitter truth, to publicly endorse the view which has been in
practice in politics and business since ages; ends justify the means. People tend to ignore
these, but he brought the worst to everyone’s notice but that doesn’t mean to be liberated
from its consequences. It is one thing to accept things like these happening in practice,
another to try to justify it rationally and Machiavelli’s was a pioneer in this direction.
2.9. Review Questions
Q1. Critically examine Machiavelli’s views on statecraft.
Q2. Discuss Machiavelli’s views on the relationship between morality and politics.

LMS
Q3. Briefly discuss Machiavelli’s view about Human Nature as depicted in “The
Prince”.
Q4. Examine the contribution of Machiavelli to political thought.
Q5. Discuss Machiavelli’s concept of Religion.
2.10. Further Readings
1. Reading Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Mill – N. Warburton, J. Pike

and D. Matravers.
2. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought – Q. Skinner

Unit – 3: Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau – State
of nature and Social Contract
LMS
Unit – 3
Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau – State of nature
and Social Contract
3.1. Thomas Hobbes (5th April 1588 – 4th December 1679)
Introduction
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury was an English philosopher who is considered one of the
founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan,
which expounded an influential formulation of social contract theory. In addition to political
philosophy, Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history,
jurisprudence, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.
Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also
developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought:
 the right of the individual

 the natural equality of all men
 the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between
civil society and the state)
 the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the
consent of the people; and
 A liberal interpretation of law that leaves people free to do whatever the law does not
explicitly forbid.
His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as
other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self
interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract"
remains one of the major topics of political philosophy.
3.1.1. Early life and Education
Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, on 5
April 1588. Born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish
Armada, Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." His
childhood is almost completely unknown, and his mother's name is unknown. His father,
Thomas Sr., was the vicar of Charlton and Westport. Thomas Hobbes, the younger, had a
brother Edmund, about two years older, and a sister. Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with
the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London and abandon the family.

LMS
The family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a wealthy merchant
with no family. Hobbes Jr. was educated at Westport church from age four, passed to the
Malmesbury School, and then to a private school kept by a young man named Robert
Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford.
Hobbes was a good pupil, and around 1603 he went up to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor
college to Hertford College, Oxford. The principal John Wilkinson was a Puritan, and he had
some influence on Hobbes. At university, Hobbes appears to have followed his own
curriculum; he was little attracted by the scholastic learning.
3.1.2. Ethics and Human Nature
Hobbes’s moral thought is difficult to disentangle from his politics. On his view, what we
ought to do depends greatly on the situation in which we find ourselves. Where political
authority is lacking (as in his famous natural condition of mankind), our fundamental right
seems to be to save our skins, by whatever means we think fit. Where political authority
exists, our duty seems to be quite straightforward: to obey those in power.
But we can usefully separate the ethics from the politics if we follow Hobbes’s own division.
For him ethics is concerned with human nature, while political philosophy deals with what
happens when human beings interact. What, then, is Hobbes’s view of human nature?
Materialism vs. self-knowledge
Reading the opening chapters of Leviathan is a confusing business, and the reason for this is
already apparent in Hobbes’s very short introduction. He begins by telling us that the human
body is like a machine, and that political organization (the commonwealth) is like an artificial
human being. He ends by saying that the truth of his ideas can be gauged only by self-
examination, by looking into our selves to adjudge our characteristic thoughts and passions,
which form the basis of all human action.
But what is the relationship between these two very different claims? For obviously when we
look into our selves we do not see mechanical pushes and pulls. This mystery is hardly
answered by Hobbes’s method in the opening chapters, where he persists in talking about all
manner of psychological phenomena – from emotions to thoughts to whole trains of
reasoning – as products of mechanical interactions.
Most commentators now agree with an argument made in the 1960’s by the political
philosopher Leo Strauss. Hobbes draws on his notion of a mechanistic science that works
deductively from first principles, in setting out his ideas about human nature. Science
provides him with a distinctive method and some memorable metaphors and similes.

LMS
What it does not provide—nor could it, given the rudimentary state of physiology and
psychology in Hobbes’s day – are any decisive or substantive ideas about what human nature
really is. Those ideas may have come, as Hobbes also claims, from self-examination. In all
likelihood, they actually derived from his reflection on contemporary events and his reading
of classics of political history such as Thucydides.
This is not to say that we should ignore Hobbes’s ideas on human nature—far from it. But it
does mean we should not be misled by scientific imagery that stems from an in fact non-
existent science (and also, to some extent, from an unproven and uncertain metaphysics). The
point is important mainly when it comes to a central interpretative point in Hobbes’s work:
whether or not he thinks of human beings as mechanical objects, programmed as it were to
pursue their self-interest.
Some have suggested that Hobbes’s mechanical world-view leaves no room for the influence
of moral ideas, that he thinks the only effective influence on our behavior will be incentives
of pleasure and pain. But while it is true that Hobbes sometimes says things like this, we
should be clear that the ideas fit together only in a metaphorical way.
For example, there is no reason why moral ideas should not “get into” the mechanisms that
drive us round (like so many clock-work dolls perhaps?). Likewise, there is no reason why
pursuing pleasure and pain should work in our self-interest. What self-interest is depends on
the time-scale we adopt, and how effectively we might achieve this goal also depends on our
insight into what harms and benefits us.
If we want to know what drives human beings, on Hobbes’s view, we must read carefully all
he says about this, as well as what he needs to assume if the rest of his thought is to make
sense. The mechanistic metaphor is something of a red herring and, in the end, probably less
useful than his other starting point in Leviathan, the Delphic epithet: nosce teipsum (know
thyself).
The poverty of human judgment and our need for science
There are two major aspects to Hobbes’s picture of human nature. As we have seen, and will
explore below, what motivates human beings to act is extremely important to Hobbes. The
other aspect concerns human powers of judgment and reasoning, about which Hobbes tends
to be extremely skeptical. Like many philosophers before him, Hobbes wants to present a
more solid and certain account of human morality than is contained in everyday beliefs. Plato
had contrasted knowledge with opinion. Hobbes contrasts science with a whole raft of less
reliable forms of belief from probable inference based on experience, right down to
“absurdity, to which no living creature is subject but man”. Hobbes has several reasons for
thinking that human judgment is unreliable, and needs to be guided by science.

LMS
Our judgments tend to be distorted by self-interest or by the pleasures and pains of the
moment. We may share the same basic passions, but the various things of the world affect us
all very differently; and we are inclined to use our feelings as measures for others. It becomes
dogmatic through vanity and morality, as with “men vehemently in love with their own new
opinions and obstinately bent to maintain them, [who give] their opinions also that
reverenced name of conscience”.
When we use words which lack any real objects of reference, or are unclear about the
meaning of the words we use, the danger is not only that our thoughts will be meaningless,
but also that we will fall into violent dispute. (Hobbes has scholastic philosophy in mind, but
he also makes related points about the dangerous effects of faulty political ideas and
ideologies.) We form beliefs about supernatural entities, fairies and spirits and so on, and fear
follows where belief has gone, further distorting our judgment.
Judgment can be swayed this way and that by rhetoric, that is, by the persuasive and “colored
speech” of others, who can deliberately deceive us and may well have purposes that go
against the common good or indeed our own good. Not least, much judgment is concerned
with what we should do now, that is, with future events, “the future being but a fiction of the
mind” (Leviathan, iii.7) and therefore not reliably known to us.
For Hobbes, it is only science, “the knowledge of consequences” (Leviathan, v.17), that
offers reliable knowledge of the future and overcomes the frailties of human judgment.
Unfortunately, his picture of science, based on crudely mechanistic premises and developed
through deductive demonstrations, is not even plausible in the physical sciences. When it
comes to the complexities of human behavior, Hobbes’s model of science is even less
satisfactory.
He is certainly an acute and wise commentator of political affairs; we can praise him for his
hard-headedness about the realities of human conduct, and for his determination to create
solid chains of logical reasoning. Nonetheless, this does not mean that Hobbes was able to
reach a level of scientific certainty in his judgments that had been lacking in all previous
reflection on morals and politics.
Motivation
The most consequential aspect of Hobbes’s account of human nature centers on his ideas
about human motivation, and this topic is therefore at the heart of many debates about how to
understand Hobbes’s philosophy. Many interpreters have presented the Hobbesian agent as a
self-interested, rationally calculating actor (those ideas have been important in modern
political philosophy and economic thought, especially in terms of rational choice theories).

LMS
It is true that some of the problems that face people like this—rational egoists, as
philosophers call them are similar to the problems Hobbes wants to solve in his political
philosophy. And it is also very common for first-time readers of Hobbes to get the impression
that he believes we are all basically selfish.
There are good reasons why earlier interpreters and new readers tend to think the Hobbesian
agent is ultimately self-interested. Hobbes likes to make bold and even shocking claims to get
his point across.
“I obtained two absolutely certain postulates of human nature,” he says, “one, the
postulate of human greed by which each man insists upon his own private use of
common property; the other, the postulate of natural reason, by which each man
strives to avoid violent death” – (De Cive, Epistle Dedicatory). What could be
clearer?
We want all we can get, and we certainly want to avoid death. There are two problems with
thinking that this is Hobbes’s considered view, however. First, quite simply, it represents a
false view of human nature. People do all sorts of altruistic things that go against their
interests. They also do all sorts of needlessly cruel things that go against self-interest (think of
the self-defeating lengths that revenge can run to).
So it would be uncharitable to interpret Hobbes this way, if we can find a more plausible
account in his work. Second, in any case Hobbes often relies on a more sophisticated view of
human nature. He describes or even relies on motives that go beyond or against self-interest,
such as pity, a sense of honor or courage, and so on. And he frequently emphasizes that we
find it difficult to judge or appreciate just what our interests are anyhow. (Some also suggest
that Hobbes’s views on the matter shifted away from egoism after De Cive, but the point is
not crucial here.)
The upshot is that Hobbes does not think that we are basically or reliably selfish; and he does
not think we are fundamentally or reliably rational in our ideas about what is in our interests.
He is rarely surprised to find human beings doing things that go against self-interest: we will
cut off our noses to spite our faces, we will torture others for their eternal salvation, we will
charge to our deaths for love of country.
In fact, a lot of the problems that befall human beings, according to Hobbes result from their
being too little concerned with self-interest. Too often, he thinks, we are too much concerned
with what others think of us, or inflamed by religious doctrine, or carried away by others’
inflammatory words. This weakness as regards our self-interest has even led some to think
that Hobbes is advocating a theory known as ethical egoism.

LMS
This is to claim that Hobbes bases morality upon self-interest, claiming that we ought to do
what it is most in our interest to do. But we shall see that this would over-simplify the
conclusions that Hobbes draws from his account of human nature.
Political Philosophy
This is Hobbes’s picture of human nature. We are needy and vulnerable. We are easily led
astray in our attempts to know the world around us. Our capacity to reason is as fragile as our
capacity to know; it relies upon language and is prone to error and undue influence. When we
act, we may do so selfishly or impulsively or in ignorance, on the basis of faulty reasoning or
bad theology or others’ emotive speech.
What is the political fate of this rather pathetic sounding creature—that is, of us?
Unsurprisingly, Hobbes thinks little happiness can be expected of our lives together. The best
we can hope for is peaceful life under an authoritarian-sounding sovereign. The worst, on
Hobbes’s account, is what he calls the natural condition of mankind, a state of violence,
insecurity and constant threat.
In outline, Hobbes’s argument is that the alternative to government is a situation no one could
reasonably wish for, and that any attempt to make government accountable to the people
must undermine it, so threatening the situation of non-government that we must all wish to
avoid. Our only reasonable option, therefore, is a “sovereign” authority that is totally
unaccountable to its subjects.
The state of nature is “natural” in one specific sense only. For Hobbes political authority
is artificial: in the “natural” condition human beings lack government, which is an authority
created by men. What is Hobbes’s reasoning here? He claims that the only authority that
naturally exists among human beings is that of a mother over her child, because the child is
so very much weaker than the mother (and indebted to her for its survival).
Among adult human beings this is invariably not the case. Hobbes concedes an obvious
objection, admitting that some of us are much stronger than others. And although he is very
sarcastic about the idea that some are wiser than others, he does not have much difficulty
with the idea that some are fools and others are dangerously cunning. Nonetheless, it is
almost invariably true that every human being is capable of killing any other.
“Even the strongest must sleep; even the weakest might persuade others to help him kill
another”. (Leviathan, xiii.1-2) Because adults are equal in this capacity to threaten one
another’s lives, Hobbes claims there is no natural source of authority to order their lives
together.

LMS
Thus, as long as human beings have not successfully arranged some form of government,
they live in Hobbes’s state of nature. Such a condition might occur at the “beginning of time”
(see Hobbes’s comments on Cain and Abel, Leviathan, xiii.11, Latin version only), or in
“primitive” societies (Hobbes thought the American Indians lived in such a condition).
But the real point for Hobbes is that a state of nature could just as well occur in seventeenth
century England, should the King’s authority be successfully undermined. It could occur
tomorrow in every modern society, for example, if the police and army suddenly refused to
do their jobs on behalf of government.
Unless some effective authority stepped into the King’s place (or the place of army and
police and government), Hobbes argues the result is doomed to be deeply awful, nothing less
than a state of war. Why should peaceful cooperation be impossible without an overarching
authority?
Hobbes provides a series of powerful arguments that suggest it is extremely unlikely that
human beings will live in security and peaceful cooperation without government. (Anarchism
the thesis that we should live without government, of course disputes these arguments.)
His most basic argument is threefold. (Leviathan, xiii.3-9)
 He thinks we will compete, violently compete, to secure the basic necessities of life
and perhaps to make other material gains.
 He argues that we will challenge others and fight out of fear (“diffidence”), so as to
ensure our personal safety.
 And he believes that we will seek reputation (“glory”), both for its own sake and for
its protective effects (for example, so that others will be afraid to challenge us).
This is a more difficult argument than it might seem. Hobbes does not suppose that we are all
selfish, that we are all cowards, or that we are all desperately concerned with how others see
us. Two points, though. First, he does think that some of us are selfish, some of us cowardly,
and some of us “vainglorious” (perhaps some people are of all of these!).
Moreover, many of these people will be prepared to use violence to attain their ends—
especially if there is no government or police to stop them. In this Hobbes is surely correct.
Second, in some situations it makes good sense, at least in the short term, to use violence and
to behave selfishly, fearfully or vaingloriously.
If our lives seem to be at stake, after all, we are unlikely to have many scruples about stealing
a loaf of bread; if we perceive someone as a deadly threat, we may well want to attack first,
while his guard is down; if we think that there are lots of potential attackers out there, it is
going to make perfect sense to get a reputation as someone who should not be messed with.

LMS
In Hobbes’s words, “the wickedness of bad men also compels good men to have recourse, for
their own protection, to the virtues of war, which are violence and fraud”. (De Cive, Epistle
Dedicatory) As well as being more complex than first appears, Hobbes’s argument becomes
very difficult to refute.
Underlying this most basic argument is an important consideration about insecurity. As we

shall see Hobbes places great weight on contracts (thus some interpreters see Hobbes as
heralding a market society dominated by contractual exchanges). In particular, he often
speaks of “covenants,” by which he means a contract where one party performs his part of the
bargain later than the other.
In the state of nature such agreements are not going to work. Only the weakest will have good
reason to perform the second part of a covenant, and then only if the stronger party is
standing over them. Yet a huge amount of human cooperation relies on trust, that others will
return their part of the bargain over time. A similar point can be made about property, most of
which we cannot carry about with us and watch over.
This means we must rely on others respecting our possessions over extended periods of time.
If we cannot do this, then many of the achievements of human society that involve putting
hard work into land (farming, building) or material objects (the crafts, or modern industrial
production, still unknown in Hobbes’s time) will be near impossible.
One can reasonably object to such points. Surely there are basic duties to reciprocate fairly
and to behave in a trustworthy manner. Even if there is no government providing a
framework of law, judgment and punishment, do not most people have a reasonable sense of
what is right and wrong, which will prevent the sort of contract-breaking and generalized
insecurity that Hobbes is concerned with?
Indeed, should not our basic sense of morality prevent much of the greed, pre-emptive attack
and reputation-seeking that Hobbes stressed in the first place? This is the crunch point of
Hobbes’s argument, and it is here (if anywhere) that one can accuse Hobbes of pessimism.
He makes two claims. The first concerns our duties in the state of nature (that is, the so-called
“right of nature”). The second follows from this, and is less often noticed: it concerns the
danger posed by our different and variable judgments of what is right and wrong.
On Hobbes’s view the right of nature is quite simple to define. Naturally speaking—that is,
outside of civil society – we have a right to do whatever we think will ensure our self-
preservation. The worst that can happen to us is violent death at the hands of others. If we
have any rights at all, if (as we might put it) nature has given us any rights whatsoever, then
the first is surely this: the right to prevent violent death befalling us.

LMS
But Hobbes says more than this, and it is this point that makes his argument so powerful. We
do not just have a right to ensure our self-preservation: we each have a right to judge what
will ensure our self-preservation. And this is where Hobbes’s picture of humankind becomes
important. Hobbes has given us good reasons to think that human beings rarely judge wisely.
Yet in the state of nature no one is in a position to successfully define what good judgment
is? If I judge that killing you is a sensible or even necessary move to safeguard my life, then
—in Hobbes’s state of nature – I have a right to kill you. Others might judge the matter
differently, of course.
Almost certainly you will have quite a different view of things (perhaps you were just
stretching your arms, not raising a musket to shoot me). Because we are all insecure, because
trust is more-or-less absent, there is little chance of our sorting out misunderstandings
peacefully, nor can we rely on some (trusted) third party to decide whose judgment is right.
We all have to be judges in our own causes, and the stakes are very high indeed: life or death.
For this reason Hobbes makes very bold claims that sound totally amoral. “To this war of
every man against every man,” he says, “this also is consequent [i.e., it follows]: that nothing
can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place [in the state
of nature]”. (Leviathan, xiii.13)
He further argues that in the state of nature we each have a right to all things, even to one
another’s body’ (Leviathan, xiv.4). Hobbes is dramatizing his point, but the core is
defensible. If I judge that I need such and such—an object, another person’s labor, another
person’s death—to ensure my continued existence, then in the state of nature, there is no
agreed authority to decide whether I’m right or wrong.
New readers of Hobbes often suppose that the state of nature would be a much nicer place, if
only he were to picture human beings with some basic moral ideas. But this is naïve: unless
people share the same moral ideas, not just at the level of general principles but also at the
level of individual judgment, then the challenge he poses remains unsolved: human beings
who lack some shared authority are almost certain to fall into dangerous and deadly conflict.
There are different ways of interpreting Hobbes’s view of the absence of moral constraints in
the state of nature. Some think that Hobbes is imagining human beings who have no idea of
social interaction and therefore no ideas about right and wrong. In this case, the natural
condition would be a purely theoretical construction, and would demonstrate what both
government and society do for human beings.
“Looking at men as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms and
grown up without any obligation to each other…” – the state of nature, De Cive
(viii.1)

LMS
Another, complementary view reads Hobbes as a psychological egoist, so that—in the state
of nature as elsewhere – he is merely describing the interaction of ultimately selfish and
amoral human beings. Others suppose that Hobbes has a much more complex picture of
human motivation, so that there is no reason to think moral ideas are absent in the state of
nature.
In particular, it is historically reasonable to think that Hobbes invariably has civil war in
mind, when he describes our “natural condition.” If we think of civil war, we need to imagine
people who have lived together and indeed still do live together—huddled together in fear in
their houses, banded together as armies or guerrillas or groups of looters. The problem here is
not a lack of moral ideas—far from it – rather that moral ideas and judgments differ
enormously.
This means (for example) that two people who are fighting tooth and nail over a cow or a gun
can both think they are perfectly entitled to the object and both think they are perfectly right
to kill the other—a point Hobbes makes explicitly and often. It also enables us to see that
many Hobbesian conflicts are about religious ideas or political ideals (as well as self-
preservation and so on)—as in the British Civil War raging while Hobbes wrote Leviathan,
and in the many violent sectarian conflicts throughout the world today.
In the end, though, whatever account of the state of nature and its morality we attribute to
Hobbes, we must remember that it is meant to function as a powerful and decisive threat: if
we do not heed Hobbes’s teachings and fail to respect existing political authority, then the
natural condition and its horrors of war await us.
3.1.4. The Laws of Nature and the Social Contract
Hobbes thinks the state of nature is something we ought to avoid, at any cost accept our own
self-preservation (this being our “right of nature,” as we saw above). But what sort of ought is
this? There are two basic ways of interpreting Hobbes here. It might be a counsel of
prudence: avoid the state of nature, if you’re concerned to avoid violent death.
In this case Hobbes’s advice only applies to us
 if we agree that violent death is what we should fear most and should therefore avoid;
and
 if we agree with Hobbes that only an unaccountable sovereign stands between human
beings and the state of nature.
This line of thought fits well with an egoistic reading of Hobbes, but it faces serious
problems, as will be seen. The other way of interpreting Hobbes is not without problems
either.

LMS
This takes Hobbes to be saying that we ought, morally speaking, to avoid the state of nature.
We have a duty to do what we can to avoid this situation arising, and a duty to end it, if at all
possible. Hobbes often makes his view clear, that we have such moral obligations. But then
two difficult questions arise: Why these obligations? And why are they obligatory?
Hobbes frames the issues in terms of an older vocabulary, using the idea of natural law that
many ancient and medieval philosophers had relied on. Like them, he thinks that human
reason can discern some eternal principles to govern our conduct. These principles are
independent of (though also complementary to) whatever moral instruction we might get
from God or religion. In other words, they are laws given by nature rather than revealed by
God.
But Hobbes makes radical changes to the content of these so-called laws of nature. In
particular, he does not think that natural law provides any scope whatsoever to criticize or
disobey the actual laws made by a government. He thus disagrees with those Protestants who
thought that religious conscience might sanction disobedience of immoral laws, and with
Catholics who thought that the commandments of the Pope have primacy over those of
national political authorities.
Although he sets out nineteen laws of nature, it is the first two that are politically crucial. A
third, that stresses the important of keeping to contracts we have entered into, is important in
Hobbes’s moral justifications of obedience to the sovereign. (The remaining sixteen can be
quite simply encapsulated in the formula, do as you would be done by. While the details are
important for scholars of Hobbes, they do not affect the overall theory and will be ignored
here.)
The first law reads as follows:
Every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he cannot
obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. (Leviathan, xiv.4)
This repeats the points we have already seen about our right of nature, so long as peace does
not appear to be a realistic prospect. The second law of nature is more complicated.
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defense of himself
he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much
liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself. (Leviathan, xiv.5)
What Hobbes tries to tackle here is the transition from the state of nature to civil society. But
how he does this is misleading and has generated much confusion and disagreement. The way
that Hobbes describes this second law of nature makes it look as if we should all put down
our weapons, give up (much of) our “right of nature,” and jointly authorize a sovereign who
will tell us what is permitted and punish us if we do not obey. But the problem is obvious.

LMS
If the state of nature is anything like as bad as Hobbes has argued, then there is just no way
people could ever make an agreement like this or put it into practice. At the end of Leviathan,
Hobbes seems to concede this point, saying “there is scarce a commonwealth in the world
whose beginnings can in conscience be justified” (Review and Conclusion, 8). That is:
governments have invariably been foisted upon people by force and fraud, not by collective
agreement.
But Hobbes means to defend every existing government that is powerful enough to secure
peace among its subjects—not just a mythical government that’s been created by a peaceful
contract out of a state of nature. His basic claim is that we should behave as if we had
voluntarily entered into such a contract with everyone else in our society—everyone else, that
is, except the sovereign authority.
In Hobbes’s myth of the social contract, everyone except the person or group who will wield
sovereign power lays down their “right to all things.” They agree to limit drastically their
right of nature, retaining only a right to defend their lives in case of immediate threat. How
limited this right of nature becomes in civil society has caused much dispute, because
deciding what an immediate threat is a question of judgment. It certainly permits us to fight
back if the sovereign tries to kill us.
But what if the sovereign conscripts us as soldiers? What if the sovereign looks weak and we
doubt whether he can continue to secure peace…?) The sovereign, however, retains his (or
her, or their) right of nature, which we have seen is effectively a right to all things—to decide
what everyone else should do, to decide the rules of property, to judge disputes and so on.
Hobbes concedes that there are moral limits on what sovereigns should do (God might call a
sovereign to account). However, since in any case of dispute the sovereign is the only rightful
judge—on this earth, that is – those moral limits make no practical difference. In every moral
and political matter, the decisive question for Hobbes is always: who is to judge? As we have
seen, in the state of nature, each of us is judge in our own cause, part of the reason why
Hobbes thinks it is inevitably a state of war. Once civil society exists, the only rightful judge
is the sovereign.
3.1.5. Why should we obey the Sovereign?
If we had all made a voluntary contract, a mutual promise, then it might seem half-way
plausible to think we have an obligation to obey the sovereign (although even this requires
the claim that promising is a moral value that overrides all others). If we have been
conquered or, more fortunately, have simply been born into a society with an established
political authority, this seems quite improbable. Hobbes has to make three steps here, all of
which have seemed weak to many of his readers.

LMS
First of all, he insists that promises made under threat of violence are nonetheless freely
made, and just as binding as any others. Second, he has to put great weight on the moral
value of promise keeping, which hardly fits with the absence of duties in the state of nature.
Third, he has to give a story of how those of us born and raised in a political society have
made some sort of implied promise to each other to obey, or at least, he has to show that we
are bound (either morally or out of self-interest) to behave as if we had made such a promise.
In the first place, Hobbes draws on his mechanistic picture of the world, to suggest that
threats of force do not deprive us of liberty. Liberty, he says, is freedom of motion, and I am
free to move whichever way I wish, unless I am literally enchained. If I yield to threats of
violence, that is my choice, for physically I could have done otherwise. If I obey the
sovereign for fear of punishment or in fear of the state of nature, then that is equally my
choice. Such obedience then comes, for Hobbes, to constitute a promise that I will continue to
obey.
Second, promises carry a huge moral weight for Hobbes, as they do in all social contact
theories. The question, however, is why we should think they are so important. Why should
my (coerced) promise oblige me, given the wrong you committed in threatening me and
demanding my valuables? Hobbes has no good answer to this question (but see below, on
egoistic interpretations of Hobbes’s thinking here).
His theory suggests that (in the state of nature) you could do me no wrong, as the right of
nature dictates that we all have a right to all things. Likewise, promises do not oblige in the
state of nature, inasmuch as they go against our right of nature.
In civil society, the sovereign’s laws dictate what is right and wrong; if your threat was
wrongful, then my promise will not bind me. But as the sovereign is outside of the original
contract, he sets the terms for everyone else: so his threats create obligations.
As this suggests, Hobbesian promises are strangely fragile. Implausibly binding so long as a
sovereign exists to adjudicate and enforce them, they lose all power should things revert to a
state of nature. Elatedly they seem to contain not one jot of loyalty. To be logically
consistent, Hobbes needs to be politically implausible.
Now there are passages where Hobbes sacrifices consistency for plausibility, arguing we
have a duty to fight for our (former) sovereign even in the midst of civil war. Nonetheless the
logic of his theory suggests that, as soon as government starts to weaken and disorder sets in,
our duty of obedience lapses. That is, when the sovereign power needs our support, because it
is no longer able to coerce us, there is no effective judge or enforcer of covenants, so that
such promises no longer override our right of nature.

LMS
This turns common sense on its head. Surely a powerful government can afford to be
challenged, for instance by civil disobedience or conscientious objection? But when civil
conflict and the state of nature threaten, in other words when government is failing, then we
might reasonably think that political unity is as morally important as Hobbes always suggests.
A similar question of loyalty also comes up when the sovereign power has been usurped—
when Cromwell has supplanted the King, when a foreign invader has ousted our government.
Right from the start, Hobbes’s critics saw that his theory makes turncoats into moral heroes:
our allegiance belongs to whoever happens to be holding the gun(s). Perversely, the only
crime the makers of a coup can commit is to fail.
Why does this problem come about? To overcome the fact that his contract is a fiction,
Hobbes is driven to construct a “sort of” promise out of the fact of our subjugation to
whatever political authority exists. He stays wedded to the idea that obedience can only find a
moral basis in a “voluntary” promise, because only this seems to justify the almost unlimited
obedience and renunciation of individual judgment he is determined to prove.
It is no surprise that Hobbes’s arguments creak at every point: nothing could bear the weight
of justifying such an overriding duty. All the difficulties in finding a reliable moral obligation
to obey might tempt us back to the idea that Hobbes is some sort of egoist. However, the
difficulties with this tack are even greater. There are two sorts of egoism commentators have
attributed to Hobbes: psychological and ethical.
The first theory says that human beings always act egoistically, the second that they ought to
act egoistically. Either view might support this simple idea: we should obey the sovereign,
because his political authority is what keeps us from the evils of the natural condition. But the
basic problem with such egoistic interpretations, from the point of view of Hobbes’s system
of politics, is shown when we think about cases where selfishness seems to conflict with the
commands of the sovereign—for example, where illegal conduct will benefit us or keep us
from danger.
For a psychologically egoist agent, such behavior will be irresistible; for an ethically egoist
agent, it will be morally obligatory. Now, providing the sovereign is sufficiently powerful
and well-informed, he can prevent many such cases arising by threatening and enforcing
punishments of those who disobey. Effective threats of punishment mean that obedience is in
our self-interest. But such threats will not be effective when we think our disobedience can go
undetected.
After Orwell’s 1984 we can imagine a state that is so powerful that no reasonable person
would ever think disobedience could pay. But for Hobbes, such a powerful sovereign was not
even conceivable: he would have had to assume that there would be many situations where
people could reasonably hope to “get away with it.”

LMS
So, still thinking of egoistic agents, the more people do get away with it, the more reason
others have to think they can do the same. Thus the problem of disobedience threatens to
“snowball,” undermining the sovereign and plunging selfish agents back into the chaos of the
state of nature.
In other words, sovereignty as Hobbes imagined it, and liberal political authority as we know
it, can only function where people feel some additional motivation apart from pure self-
interest. Moreover, there is strong evidence that Hobbes was well aware of this. Part of
Hobbes’s interest in religion (a topic that occupies half of Leviathan) lies in its power to
shape human conduct.
Sometimes this does seem to work through self-interest, as in crude threats of damnation and
hell-fire. But Hobbes’s main interest lies in the educative power of religion, and indeed of
political authority. Religious practices, the doctrines taught in the universities (!), the beliefs
and habits inculcated by the institutions of government and society: how these can encourage
and secure respect for law and authority seem to be even more important to
Hobbes’s political solutions than his theoretical social contract or shaky appeals to simple
self-interest.
What are we to conclude, then, given the difficulties in finding a reliable moral or selfish
justification for obedience? In the end, for Hobbes, everything rides on the value of peace.
Hobbes wants to say both that civil order is in our “enlightened” self-interest, and that it is of
overwhelming moral value.
Life is never going to be perfect for us, and life under the sovereign is the best we can do.
Recognizing this aspect of everyone’s self-interest should lead us to recognize the moral
value of supporting whatever authority we happen to live under. For Hobbes, this moral value
is so great—and the alternatives so stark – that it should override every threat to our self-
interest except the imminent danger of death. The million-dollar question is then: is a life of
obedience to the sovereign really the best human beings can hope for?
3.1.6. Summary
What happens, then, if we do not follow Hobbes in his arguments that judgment must, by
necessity or by social contract or both, be the sole province of the sovereign? If we are
optimists about the power of human judgment, and about the extent of moral consensus
among human beings, we have a straightforward route to the concerns of modern liberalism.
Our attention will not be on the question of social and political order, rather on how to
maximize liberty, how to define social justice, how to draw the limits of government power,
and how to realize democratic ideals.

LMS
We will probably interpret Hobbes as a psychological egoist, and think that the problems of
political order that obsessed him were the product of an unrealistic view of human nature, or
unfortunate historical circumstances, or both. If we are less optimistic about human judgment
in morals and politics, however, we should not doubt that Hobbes’s problems remain our
problems. But hindsight shows grave limitations to his solutions. Theoretically, Hobbes fails
to prove that we have an almost unlimited obligation to obey the sovereign.
His arguments that sovereignty—the power to judge moral and political matters, and enforce
those judgments—cannot be divided are not only weak; they are simply refuted by the
(relatively) successful distribution of powers in modern liberal societies. Not least, the
horrific crimes of twentieth century dictatorships show beyond doubt that judgment about
right and wrong cannot be a question only for our political leaders.
If Hobbes’s problems are real and his solutions only partly convincing, where will we go? It
might reasonably be thought that this is the central question of modern political thought. We
will have no doubt that peaceful coexistence is one of the greatest goods of human life
something worth many inconveniences, sacrifices and compromises.
We will see that there is moral force behind the laws and requirements of the state, simply
because human beings do indeed need authority and systems of enforcement if they are to
cooperate peacefully. But we can hardly accept that, because human judgment is weak and
faulty, that there can be only one judge of these matters—precisely because that judge might
turn out to be very faulty indeed.
Our concern will be how we can effectively divide power between government and people,
while still ensuring that important questions of moral and political judgment are peacefully
adjudicated. We will be concerned with the standards and institutions that provide for
compromise between many different and conflicting judgments. And all the time, we will
remember Hobbes’s reminder that human life is never without inconvenience and troubles
that we must live with a certain amount of bad, to prevent the worst: fear of violence, and
violent death.
3.2. John Locke (29th August 1632 – 28th October 1704)
Introduction
John Locke (1632 - 1704) secured a prominent place in the history of English political
thought. He is well acclaimed as a champion of natural rights, and also popularly known as
the father of philosophic liberalism. The political ideas of Locke are to be found in his very
important work Two Treatises on Civil Government (1690). The first Treatise is a logical
refutation of the political and social philosophy of Sir Robert Filmer's work Patriarcha
(1654).

LMS
In the second Treatise Locke discussed his views on political philosophy. It is a

comprehensive work explaining the origin, authority and purpose of civil government. Also,
it deals with the state of nature, social contract, political society, forms of government, and
right to property. The most important feature of Locke's work is that it analyses the various
aspects of state and government.
Locke not only opposed the divine rights of kings advocated by the Church of England, but
also opposed the doctrine of absolute sovereignty advocated by his predecessor Hobbes. He
ridiculed the view that all government is absolute monarchy that kings have a divine right to
absolute power, and that mankind has no right to natural freedom and equality.
Locke adopted the technique of social contract to explain that legitimate political authority is
derived from the consent of the people, which can be withdrawn when the freedom of the
individuals is violated or infringed.
The three cardinal principles that the Two Treatises exposed and defended were freedom,
consent, and property. Men are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions
and dispose of their possessions according to their will and wish within the bounds of the law
of Nature.
3.2.1. Human nature
Locke developed his social contract theory on the basis of his views on human nature. A
detailed discussion on Locke's conception of human nature is found in his Essay concerning
Human Understanding (1690). He assumed that human beings are naturally endowed with
certain basic instincts such as decency, goodness, socially inclination, and capability of ruling
themselves.
Unlike Hobbes, Locke held that men are capable, efficient, and considerate beings. In fact,
Locke's conception of social contract revolved around this idea that the individual was quiet
dependable and rational. Locke believed that man is not as selfish and anti-social as portrayed
by Hobbes. He held that man is social and rational being capable of and interested in living in
a society. It is not a rule but only an exception that man is selfish, competitive, and
aggressive.
On the contrary, men are naturally able to govern themselves by the law of nature, or Reason.
According to Locke, men are born free and equal. Their freedom is governed on the basis of
reason, which guides them how to govern themselves. Men become morally equal as long as
the reason in them recognizes the natural laws. Human beings are disposed to be rational in
their character, because of the presence of reason, which is a dominant factor. He maintained
that men are moral because they are by nature rational and can therefore discover how they
ought to behave.

LMS
Thus Locke sounds Aristotelian in recognizing rationality as an essence of human beings.

With the help of reason, human beings learn to control their emotions, anger, love, and so on.
Since men are social and good, they possess sympathy, love and affection towards one
another. Consequently, claimed Locke, the first instinct of man was to live in peace and
harmony with others.
To quote Locke in this context:
"Men living together according to reason, without a common Superior on Earth, with
authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature ".
Locke endorsed the view of Hobbes that before man's entry into the civil state, he was living
in the state of nature. However, unlike Hobbes, he held that man was living in the state of
nature where there was law, order, peace, and property. Like Hobbes, Locke too discussed
the state of nature in order to show that the political power is derived from the state of nature.
However both Hobbes and Locke held contrasting positions with regard to the conditions
prevailing in the state of nature. Thus Locke began his political argument with a profoundly
paradoxical assertion, namely, the political power. This is derived from the un-political state.
To quote Locke's words here:
“To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must
consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to
order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit,
within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the
will of any other man”.
From the above quotation of Locke it is very clear that the political power originates from
and culminates in the state of nature. Locke held that to understand the nature of right as a
political power, and the original source from which it is derived, it is necessary to understand
the state in which people were living. According to him, such a state is a state of perfect
equality and freedom in which people can guide their own actions, and dispose of their
possessions within the bounds of the law of nature, without seeking or depending upon the
will of any other man.
Locke wrote:
“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one
having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the
same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and

LMS
the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another, without
subordination or subjection.”
Locke opined that state of nature is a state of equality that promotes the equality of right and
freedom. In short, it is a state of equality. The power and jurisdiction in the state of nature are
reciprocal to each other. Since all men are equal by birth, all of them have equal powers
(rights) to exercise. So, one has to get recognition of the state to exercise power.
For example, 'A' can exercise his power as long as the other members in the state of nature
recognize it. Similar is the case with every member of the state of nature. He further stated
that in the state of nature no individual is superior or inferior to any other individual in terms
of exercising ones power, for all created by God. Since God created all men, everybody has
equal right to make use of the nature and faculties.
As regards the state of nature, Locke further held that:
“Though this be a State of liberty, yet it is not a state of license; though men in that
state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has
not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession.”
Locke clearly pictured that the state of nature is a State of liberty, but it is not a state of
license. The point he wanted to drive home is that although man is endowed with
uncontrollable liberty, he is not authorized to destroy himself or any creature in his
possession. Thus his uncontrollable liberty is checked.
The state of nature has a law of Nature to govern if which obliges every one. Thus for him
liberty is not the freedom to do whatever one wants to do, but to act within the framework of
the law of nature. Therefore, he defended personal independence and freedom as man's
fundamental right. Thus, the law of nature is nothing but the reason. In short, reason teaches
entire human kind to consult the fact that all human beings are equal and independent before
indulging in any type of action.
Thus Locke opined that since all men are equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, Liberty, and possessions. In a way, he demolished the view that
some men are superior to some other men. Indirectly he opposed the Aristotle's master-slave
distinction. If all are created by the same God and equal to one another in all respect, then no
one has to obey the dictates of other. This amounts to saying that, no man has a right to
coerce or dominate any other man in the state of nature.
Locke emphasized that everyman possesses an equal right to his natural freedom without
being subjected to the will or authority of any other man. The state of nature, claimed Locke,
was not a state of war of all against all as advocated by Hobbes.

LMS
He held that the state of nature was not a state of constant and continuous war because of law
of nature that governed the state of nature. In spite of the fact that the law of nature governed
the state of nature, Locke admitted that the state of nature was a state of precarious peace.
To quote Locke here:
“And that all men may be restrained from invading others' rights, and from doing
hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and
preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is in that state put into
every man's hand whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that
law to such a degree as may hinder its violation.”
Locke proclaimed that although the state of nature is not a state of war because it has a law of
nature to govern it, yet the law of nature needs some authorities to enforce it. He himself
raised the question that, suppose there is no authority in the state of nature to enforce the law
of nature, what will happen to such a law? He answered that such a law would become vain.
This means that some authority is needed to execute the law.
Therefore, Locke held that the execution of the law of nature in that state is put into every
man's hand. In other words, all the subjects have the right to execute the law of nature. In
such a state everyone has a right to punish the transgressors or the violators of the law. The
punishment should be so severe to deter others from committing the similar offences by the
same person as well as by the others.
The punishment given to the transgressors should teach a lesson for others and hider the
violation of similar kind. In a way Locke advocated deterrent theory of punishment. This is a
right of punishment and not merely a right of self-defence. If it were merely a right of self-
defence, no one in the state of nature could rightly use force except against persons invading
his own rights.
But what he wanted to envisage is that everyone in the state of nature has a right to punish
anyone who launches an offence against the law of nature, whether he is himself the victim of
that offence or not. This is possible only when all people are endowed with equal rights in a
state of nature.
According to Locke, the right to property in its wider sense refers to right to life, liberty, and
property, but in its narrower sense refers to property alone. It is man's right to dispose of
himself and of what he sets aside for his own use in whatever ways seem best to him. The
right to life, property, and possession is limited only by the obligation to respect the same
right in others and it cannot be further limited except with the consent of its possessors.

LMS
The law of nature allows interference only with aggressors; it does not allow the generality of
men to require more of any man than that he should respect that law, which means only that
he should respect in others the freedom that he claims for himself. The only laws to which all
men are subject, whether they like it or not, are not a law made by men. It is not even the un-
deliberate product of their living in society with one another.
It is not custom or convention but the law of reason which defines the rights and duties that
constitute and sustain freedom. The law of nature is therefore the law of freedom. It is a law
that men do not make but only discover. The maker of law requires others for they should
submit to his will, and no man can rightly require this of another man without his consent. In
the state of nature the right of command belongs only to God. His commands are intended to
bring peace, harmony among men, and also to deal justly with one another.
In other words, they obey the law of nature, which is obligatory, and dependent on God's
will. Though Locke did not directly criticize Hobbes, he refuted some of the ideas advocated
by Hobbes. According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a war of all against all. Locke held
that the state of nature is one of "peace, good will, mutual assistance and preservation.'" This
is defended on the ground that the law of nature provides a complete equipment of natural
rights and duties.
But the defect of the state of nature is the absence of impartial magistrates, written law, and
fixed penalties, to give effect to the rules of right. In the state of nature every man must
protect his own interests as best he can, but this is possible only in a government with limited
sovereignty. The state of nature need not be prehistoric, nor a condition peculiar to primitive
men, nor even pre-political. Locke held that: "all princes and rules of independent
government are in a state of nature."'
What is inferred from this statement of Locke is that the state of nature requires a common
judge with authority to regulate all men in the state of nature. Therefore, the state of all men
in the state of nature is one and the same. The state of nature is not limited to any era,
prehistoric or historic, for "the world never was, nor ever will be, without number of men in
that state."'
3.2.3. Natural rights and Property
The conception of natural rights and the theory of property is the third important theme in
Locke. He believed that in the state of nature property is common to all men in the sense that
everyone has the right to draw subsistence from whatever nature offers. Accordingly
everybody has the right to utilize everything that is offered by nature. In the middle ages it
was not uncommon to suppose that common ownership is a more perfect and hence a more
"natural" state than private ownership.

LMS
Another different theory existed in the Roman law, according to which private property
begins with the appropriation of things that were commonly used although there was no
communal ownership. Locke departed from both these theories. For instance, he advocated
that an individual has a natural right to that piece of land that he tills and makes fertile by
expending the labour of his body.
Further he argued that the right to private property arises because by labour man extends his
own personality into the objects produced. By expending his energy upon them he makes
them a part of himself.
“God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to
make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. The earth and all that is
therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being.”
Locke pointed out that by human reason and revelation, it is apparent that the earth and its
fruits belong to God and that He has given it to the human inhabitants in common to enjoy. In
fact, Locke tried to answer Filmer's criticism against Grotius by questioners, how can an
individual have a private right to any part of a common heritage.
God have given the world to men in common and have also given them reason to make use of
the world to the best advantage of life and convenience. The world and all that is therein is
given to men for the support and comfort of their being. So, everybody has equal right over
the content of the world.
To put it in the words of Locke:
“Though all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in
common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and nobody has
originally a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them as they
are thus in their natural state."
The point that Locke wanted to establish here is that in the beginning no one had exclusive
right to own anything in nature. Therefore, the bounty of nature is for the benefit of
everybody and everyone in their natural state have the right over the fruits of nature. The
beasts it feeds and the fruits naturally produced are the production of the spontaneous hand of
nature.
Since hits and beasts are produced naturally no one has the exclusive right over the
enjoyment of these things. Even though the spontaneous hand of nature creates everything in
the natural state, there must be a means to appropriate them through some way or other
before they can be beneficial to any particular man.

LMS
As stated earlier Locke used the term 'property' in two senses. In the wider sense, it includes
the rights to life, liberty, and external possessions. In the narrower sense, it refers to the right
to external possessions alone. As a matter of fact, Locke's account of property in its narrower
sense is considered to be an important part of his political theory.
According to him:
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has
a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of
his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his."
Locke held that God gave the world to all men in common to make use of to the best
advantage to preserve life and liberty. But what God provided is not often, in its natural form,
immediately useful to men. It has to be made useful by their labour. So, men exert their
labour power to make the world to get the best advantage. Since man has an original property
in his own person, his labour belongs to himself.
Therefore:
“Whatever he mixes his labour with, he takes out of the common store and makes it
his own. Thus, no one has the right to use it without his emission. He alone can make
use of it.”
Locke clarified that the law of nature gives man the right to acquire property by mixing his
labour with what God had provided. This does not mean that men can accumulate as much as
possible. He opined that the law of nature sets the limitation to what one could acquire. Locke
set the limitation on the acquisition of private property by holding the view that: "As much as
anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his
labour fix a property in."
This clearly shows that one should not aspire for more than what is required for his survival.
Indirectly Locke emphasized on the need of cultivating the habit of self contentment. If he
does not set any limitation to his personal or private acquisition of property, then the result
would be to invade his neighbor’s share. It means that by taking that which he cannot use, he
prevents someone else from taking it. The notion of spoiling also includes allowing anything
to go to waste.
Locke argued that: "as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates and can use the
product of, so much is his property."' He stated that a man can take as much from the
common store as he can use to any advantage of life. This means that every man is the sole
judge of what he can use to his own advantage. He may not take more than he can use just
because God has given the world to all men in common for their use.

LMS
Filmer raised the question that how can we know that anyone has taken more than he can use;
that he has invaded neighbor's share? Locke answered that he has allowed it to spoil or, if it is
land, has allowed it to go to waste. Provided you do not allow what you have mixed your
labour with to spoil, and provided you go on mixing labour with it if such mixing is needed to
prevent spoiling or waste, you are presumably using your property to some advantage.
For instance:
“He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he
gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself.
Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his.”
Even though property is common to everybody, the acorns which one picked up under and
oak or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood are certainly appropriated to himself.
These are certainly appropriated to himself, because he exerts himself to collect the acorns
and apples from the nature. Therefore Locke claimed that labour put a distinction between
property possessed by the individual and the property shared by all men in common. That
added something to them more than Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they
became his private right.
And will anyone say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated because
he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? We see in commons, which remain
so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the
state of nature leaves it in, which begins the property, without which the common is of no
use. And the taking of this or that part does not depend on the express consent of all the
commoners.
Thus, the grass my horse has bitten, the turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have dug in
any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property without
the assignation or consent of anybody. This means that I will claim the exclusive right over
anything, which is only produced by me without the help of any other. The labour that was
mine removing them out of that common state they were in, have fixed my property in them.
Locke answered Filmer's criticism by advancing the view that it is human labour that
distinguishes what is privately owned from what is held in common. Labour is the
unquestioned property of the labourer and by mixing his labour with a piece of land, a man
acquires the right to whatever he has made of that material. In the state of nature, men have
initially a limited right to appropriation.
It is limited by the following factors;
 An individual can appropriate only that much for which he has a need.

LMS
 He has a right to only that for which he has mixed the labour of his body and the work
of his hand.
Locke categorically stated that since property is a natural right derived from natural law, it is
therefore prior to the government. It's for the protection of property that men enter into an
agreement or contract. The government should recognize this right and embody it is a
statutory form.
Since the state is created for the sole protection of property, consequently no part or the
whole of the individual's property can be taken without the latter's consent. Besides, no taxes
can be levied without the consent of the individual. Otherwise it invades into the fundamental
right to property and subverts the ends of the government.
Paternal power
Locke pointed out that the first society was between man and woman that paved the way for a
society called family or familial society wherein one finds social cohesion between parents
and children. This familial society was the foundation of the very social contract proposed by
Locke. He viewed that in the course of time, the society between master and servant came to
be added. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary contract between man and woman. It
exists chiefly in such a communion and right in each other's bodies which are necessary to its
chief end, procreation.
However, it carries along with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests
too. These elements are necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also they are
necessary to their common offspring, who have a right to be nourished and maintained by
them till they are able to sustain on their own.
Moreover, the chief end of conjugal association between male and female is not merely for
the purpose of procreation, but it is for the furtherance of the species. We, the inferior
creators obey this rule as it is the creation of the infinite Wise Maker. This is what is called
family. Proceeding further, Locke raised the question: why is that male and female in
mankind are tied to a longer conjugal association than the other creatures?
He answered that it is only because the female alone is capable of conceiving, and bring forth
to a new birth. Hence it is necessary that the male has to take care of both the female and the
offspring until the latter becomes independent in every respect. At the same time, the father,
who is bound to take care for those he has begotten, is under an obligation to continue in
conjugal society with the same woman longer than other creatures. The father has to take care
of the child until and unless the latter has the potentiality to take care of him/ her. Here Locke
was stressing more on obligations than rights.

LMS
Perhaps he was aware of the fact that one cannot talk of rights without discharging one's
obligations towards family and society in general. Although these obligations are imposed
upon human beings in the form of ties, they make the conjugal bonds among hum beings
more firms and lasting when compared to the other species.
As regards these relations Locke wrote:
“It would give one reason to inquire why this compact, where procreation and
education are secured and inheritance taken care for, may not be made determinable,
either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any
other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity, in the nature of the thing, nor to
the ends of it, that it should always be for life.''
Locke maintained that although husband and wife differ with each other in their
understanding of certain social phenomena as they possess different wills, yet they share the
common concern for the welfare of the family. In order to settle the disputes between
husband and wife in a family, Locke felt that the power to restore their relation should not be
in the hands of either husband or wife, but it should be in the hands of a third person who can
act as an 'impartial judge' by not favoring any one of them.
This gave Locke a clue to develop his social contract theory, which protects the larger
interests of the people in the state. Thus it has wider application. Even though in the state of
nature people have difference of opinions, they have common understanding towards the
welfare of the state. And the power to solve the disputes that originate among them should be
in the hands of common judge. His common judge is none other than the limited sovereign in
the form of an elected government.
Thus Locke opposed the absolute sovereignty because it deprives individuals of their natural
rights. As a champion of natural rights he opposed anything and everything that deprived
men of their inherent rights.
3.2.4. Causes of Contract
Locke made it very clear that if all men are naturally free, equal and independent; no one can
be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own
consent. It is possible if and only if there is a mutual agreement among the individuals to join
and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable life on the earth.
Locke himself raised the following question: If man in the state of nature be so free, as has
been said, if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and
subject to nobody, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the
dominion and control of any other powers?

LMS
The question that arises is: if men are born free, how do they agree to become subjects of a
government? If the state of nature was a state of peace, what was the need for a state by
contract? Locke answered that even though the state of nature is a state of peace and the
individuals enjoy such a right, the enjoyment of such a right is very uncertain, and constantly
exposed to the invasions of others. If all men are kings in the state of nature, then there is no
inequality among the individuals.
Consequently, all are treated equally in their claim to rights of all sons. However, in the
absence of a strict observer of equity and justice in the state of nature there is no guarantee
for the individuals' enjoyment of property. Thus a sense of uncertainty and insecurity prevails
over the individuals. The rights in the state of nature are suffering from certain illusions and
inconveniences.
In the state of nature the peace was not secure and constant. The state of nature is full of fears
and continual dangers. The individual is not sure of the moral obligation of his actions, and
there is no one to guide him. The corrupt, vicious, and degenerate men might at any time
disturb the peace. Thus there is a continual danger for peace. In other words, the so-called
peace is not secured and there is no framed law to control and punish the corrupt, vicious, and
degenerate men.
“The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and
putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which
in the state of nature there are many things wanting.. . an established, settled known
law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong,
a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according
to the established law, power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give
due execution.”
By citing above reasons, Locke concluded that the state of nature suffered from three ills.
They are:
 Laws are not clearly defined

 There is no common authority to enforce the laws and rights, and
 There is no recognized judge to settle disputes, if any, among individual.
In other words, there is no legislature to make laws, no executive to implement the laws and
no judiciary to interpret the laws. Thus the three major parts of a government are missing in
the state of nature. According to Locke, it is the internal and inherent desire of the society to
establish a social contract.

LMS
Locke identified the following reasons for opting for a contract by the people.
 Individual's inability to keep his natural rights against injustice.

 Since everybody is competent to punish the other for breach of law, the confusion is
found to originate in the state of nature.
 Since, all are sole interpreters of law, inconveniences and confusions are bound to
arise in the state of nature.
Locke held that the people in the State of nature have to 'avert' a war which is round the
corner and which might break forth at any time. To avoid the conditions of continual fear of
war and its danger, people opted out of the state of nature and entered into a contract. By the
contract among themselves people created a civil society or the state. This social contract
according to Locke, is all to all.
The individuals did not surrender all the rights they enjoyed in the state of nature. This
contract is for a limited and specific purpose. In fact, people surrendered only one aspect of
their natural rights, that is, the right of interpreting and enforcing the laws. The people
surrendered their right to the community as a whole and not to an individual or an assembly
of men.
Locke asserted that man is created with such natural tendency that convenience and
inclination always attracted him and drove him into society. God endowed man with
understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. Since every man is created by God, no
one is superior or inferior to anyone. Being creations of the one and the same God, they are
all equal in every respect.
The things that are found wanting in a state of nature are an established, settled, known law; a
known and impartial judge with authority; power to back and support the sentence, when
right, and give it due execution. In other words, although people are living and leading a
peaceful life, there is no authorized and authoritative element to solve the social disputes,
which may originate at any times. And there is no authorized element to execute and direct
the subjects.
According to Locke, people can have a political or civil society only when they surrender
their executive power of the law of nature to a person or a group of persons. Whenever
people enter into such a political or civil society, which is under the control of one body
politic or one supreme government, to safeguard their property, they have to surrender their
natural rights, which they enjoyed in the law of nature.

LMS
Locke tried to explain the origin and nature of political authority within the framework of
social contractualism. He justified the Glorious Revolution and wanted to establish a
constitutional government. He proclaimed that the government should exist for the people to
protect their liberty, property and life, but not vice versa. If the government fails to work for
the welfare of the society, people have every right to rebel against the government and they
can change the government. Locke developed his theory of social contract from the notion of
state of nature.
For Locke, the state of nature is only a pre-political state. It means that there is existence of
an organized society, but there is no established government. Man gives up his freedom and
power, because the enjoyment of it is very uncertain and constantly exposed to the invasion
of others. Since, all men are equal in the state nature; there is no strict observer of equity and
justice. Consequently, the enjoyment of property that they possess in the state of nature is
unsafe and insecure.
This makes the individuals to look for a way out of this condition that is full of fears and
continual dangers. If the vicious and degenerate men are forbidden to enter into the contract,
then there is need of any society, but the state of nature. The most important end of men's
uniting into a commonwealth is for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and
estates.
Hence the power of society can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good.
It is by means of contract the individuals agree to submit their powers (natural rights) to a
majority rule in order to organize themselves as a community. Although people surrendered
their natural rights, it should not be understood that they surrendered all aspects of those
rights. In fact, they partially surrendered those natural rights to make the contract functional.
Once the contract becomes functional, the civil society is established. This facilitates the
individuals to form a government in the nature of a fiduciary power, which is supreme for it
represents the power of the people. The government thus established enjoys prerogatives.
However, it is subordinate and accountable to the legislature. Also, it must be mentioned here
that the legislative power is separate from the executive power. The third is the federative
powers, whose function is to make treaties and conduct external relation of the state.
3.2.6. Two Contracts
People enter into a contract among themselves in order to protect their life, property and
liberty. Consequently, they enter into a civil society. Locke, unlike Hobbes, spoke of two
contracts. The first is a social contract by which the state or civil society is created. It is
otherwise known as Express Contract. By this contract, civil society is created to meet the
deficiencies of the state of nature.

LMS
Unlike Hobbes, Locke stated that people surrendered only one aspect of their rights and only
a limited surrender. The second is known as a governmental contract or tacit contract. Here
the contract is between the community and the rulers by which the society authorizes the
government to make positive laws consistent with the laws of nature. As the government
enjoys only a judiciary power, this is subordinate to the first contract.
The second contract is not openly advocated by Locke. He further observed that the
legislative power becomes the supreme power in the commonwealth. This power is based on
the consent of the people. This legislative power should be exercised only to promote the
peace, safety and public good of the people.
According to Locke, the government is only a trust and the governmental contract is to
exercise powers for the peace and prosperity of the people. When the government does not
function for the good of the people, they have the right to overthrow the government. Thus
Locke made the monarch a party to the contract and established a constitutional monarchy.
Its authority should be based on the consent of the people and it has to work for the welfare
of the people.
3.2.7. Summary
Since men by nature are free, politically equal, creatures of God, subject to the laws of nature,
and possessors of an executive power of the laws of nature, they can become subjects of
political authority only by their consent. Without consent there can be no political
community. As discussed elsewhere, Locke recognized two kinds of consent, express and
tacit. The former is an explicit commitment to the commonwealth. In case there is no
provision for explicit consent, the people's obligation to obey the commonwealth can be
gauged by their tacit consent. The two problems with regard to tacit consent that Locke
himself acknowledges are what it is and how far it binds.
According to him, tacit consent is demonstrated when "every man has any possession or
enjoyment of any part of the dominion of that government, he has to oblige to the laws of that
government for the enjoyment of that possession; whether it is possession of land, to him and
his heirs forever, or a lodging only for a week and soon."
Locke stated that government exists for the well being of the society. He argued against the
attainment of power through conquest. Further he made a distinction between just and unjust
warfare. A mere aggressor gains no right, and even a conqueror in just war can never
establish a right which contravenes the right of the conquered to their liberty and property.
Locke is against any theory that a government can derive a just power merely through
conquest or from success by using force. Thus, a government which begins in force can be
justified only by its recognition and support of the moral rights inherent in the persons and
communities.

LMS
3.3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28th June 1712 – 2nd July 1778)
Introduction
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of
Enlightenment. His Political Philosophy particularly his formulation of social contract theory
(or Contractarianism), strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of
Liberal, Conservative, and Socialist theory. A brilliant, undisciplined and unconventional
thinker throughout his colorful life, his views on Philosophy of Education and on religion
were equally controversial but nevertheless influential.
He is considered to have invented modern autobiography and his novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle
Héloïse" was one of the best-selling fictional works of the 18th Century (and was important to
the development of Romanticism). He also made important contributions to music, both as a
theorist and as a composer.
3.3.1. Early Life
Rousseau was born on 28th June 1712 in Geneva, Switzerland (although he spent most of his
life in France, he always described himself as a citizen of Geneva). His mother, Suzanne
Bernard, died just nine days after his birth from birth complications. His father, Isaac
Rousseau, a failed watchmaker, abandoned him in 1722 (when he was just 10 years old) to
avoid imprisonment, after which time Rousseau was cared for by an uncle who sent him to
study in the village of Bosey. His only sibling, an older brother, ran away from home when
Rousseau was still a child.
His childhood education consisted solely of reading the Plutarch's "Lives" and Calvinist
sermons in a public garden. His youthful experiences of corporal punishment at the hands of
the pastor's sister developed in later life into a predilection for masochism and exhibitionism.
For several years as a youth, he was apprenticed to a notary and then to an engraver.
In 1728, at the age of 16, Rousseau left Geneva for Annecy in south-eastern France, where he
met Françoise-Louise de Warens, a French Catholic baroness. She later became his lover, but
she also provided him with the education of a nobleman by sending him to a good Catholic
school, where Rousseau became familiar with Latin and the dramatic arts, in addition to
studying Aristotle. During this time he earned money through secretarial, teaching and
musical jobs.
Towards the end of the 1740s, he became friends with the French philosopher Denis Diderot
(1713 - 1784) and contributed several articles to the latter's "Encyclopédie". However, the
friendship soon became strained and Diderot later described Rousseau as being "deceitful,
vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical and full of malice".

LMS
3.3.2. Important Works
In "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" (1750) Rousseau argued that the arts and sciences
had not been beneficial to humankind because they were not human needs, but rather a result
of pride and vanity. Moreover, the opportunities they created for idleness and luxury
contributed to the corruption of man, undermined the possibility of true friendship (by
replacing it with jealousy, fear and suspicion), and made governments more powerful at the
expense of individual liberty.
His subsequent "Discourse on Inequality" (1755) expanded on this theme and tracked the
progress and degeneration of mankind from a primitive state of nature to modern society in
more detail, starting from the earliest humans (solitary beings, differentiated from animals by
their capacity for free will and their perfectibility, and possessed of a basic drive to care for
themselves and a natural disposition to compassion or pity).
In "The Social Contract" of 1762 (his most important work and one of the most influential
works of Political Philosophy in the Western tradition), he offered his own alternative
conception of the social contract. Opening with the dramatic lines, "Man is born free, and
everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of
a slave than they".
Rousseau's views on religion were highly controversial. His view that man is good by nature
conflicted with the doctrine of original sin, and his theology of nature (as well as the claims
he made in "The Social Contract" that true followers of Jesus would not make good citizens)
led to the condemnation and banning of his books in both Calvinist Geneva and Catholic
Paris.
Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private
property, and therefore is considered to some extent a forebear of modern Socialism,
Marxism and Anarchism. He also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is
always correct, arguing that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality and
justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority.
Rousseau set out his influential views on Philosophy of Education in his semi-fictitious
"Émile" (1762). The aim of education, he argued, is to learn how to live righteously, and this
should be accomplished by following a guardian (preferably in the countryside, away from
the bad habits of the city) who can guide his pupil through various contrived learning
experiences. He minimized the importance of book learning and placed a special emphasis on
learning by experience, and he recommended that a child's emotions should be educated
before his reason. He took the subordination of women as read, however, and envisaged a
very different educational process for women, who were to be, educated to be governed
rather than to govern.

LMS
3.3.3. The State of Nature
The state of nature was discussed by Rousseau in his Discourses on the origin of Inequality.
His state of nature is an instrument to reveal the sick and perverted condition of the present
civilized man. It is bereft of the dogmas and modern conventions that characterize a modern
society. Against Hobbes, Rousseau said that in the state of nature, people were innocent and
were absolutely free and led a contended life.
People never faced war and had minimum desires that were compatible with their survival
needs. They never craved for more possessions. Everything was available in abundance and
there was no need for them to depend on others and logically no need for extensive social
interaction. However, it is important to note that an ‘unreflective sympathy and general
compassion’ towards others without any discrimination was present.
The natural man for Rousseau was in his own description, a ‘noble savage’ who knew neither
vice nor virtue. Such a man lived a solitary, happy and carefree life. Rousseau opined that in
the state of nature there was no place for such vices like blame, criticism, judgment,
comparison with others and the distinction based on merit. For him, it is a mistake to
recognize distinctions in a society as it makes them unequal.
Human beings, in the state of nature, are self-contended and love their selves. However, this
does not mean that they do not feel for the others. They do have the feeling of compassion for
the suffering of others. Rousseau had immense faith in the natural goodness of human beings
and believed that one by nature is just as good as any other. However, this natural goodness
of man was corrupted in the most sophisticated societies. For Rousseau, history is the story of
corruption, whereby a healthy innocence gives way to a corrupt sophistication with the onset
of farming and technology.
A person’s sense of self-fragments as wants multiply in the context of a thoroughly social

condition in which happiness and self-regard are measured comparatively. The
transformation of a world of rough and rude equality into a sophisticated state of social
inequality spells the ruin and fragmentation of mankind. A man becomes alien to himself.
Rousseau believed that civilization enslaved and corrupted man and made him unnatural.
While in the state of nature all human beings were equal, distinctions and discrimination is
the hallmarks of the modern civilized societies.
Rousseau was consistent in arguing that man by nature is a saint and hence it is the corruption
of the modern society that can account for the misconduct and degeneration of the
individuals. The noble savage was leading a happy life in the state of nature, that is, before
the formation of institutions such as ‘private property’ which itself came into being as a
consequence of desire to have a family and settled life completely replacing the life of a
wanderer.

LMS
These institutions destroyed the hitherto existing natural equality among men. Human beings
lost their freedom and self-sufficiency. The society witnessed violence, crime and other evils
of the society, including slavery. Thereafter, ‘it became a problem to harmonize the
institutions of family, of property, of society, of law and of government with the liberty, the
equality and the individualism of the state of nature.’
In addition, the increasing population made it more difficult to manage the problems of the
society. Rousseau argued in his book. Social Contract that despite the happy life led by
humans in the original state of nature, they were driven from it by a variety of obstacles,
which threatened their self-preservation.
Further, he said that, ‘human beings came to realize that the development of their nature, the
realization of their capacity for reason, the fullest experience of liberty, could be achieved
only by a social contract which established a system of cooperation through a law-making
and enforcing body.’
Rousseau maintained that the solution to the problems created by the obstacles of the state of
nature 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 alone and remain as free as before. This realization of human
beings results in the generation of a state or political association through the social contract.
Rousseau begins The Social Contract with the most famous words he ever wrote: “Men are
born free, yet everywhere are in chains.” From this provocative opening, Rousseau goes on
to describe the myriad ways in which the “chains” of civil society suppress the natural
birthright of man to physical freedom. He states that the civil society does nothing to enforce
the equality and individual liberty that were promised to man when he entered into that
society.
For Rousseau, the only legitimate political authority is the authority consented to by all the
people, who have agreed to such government by entering into a social contract for the sake of
their mutual preservation. Rousseau describes the ideal form of this social contract and also
explains its philosophical underpinnings.
To Rousseau, the collective grouping of all people who by their consent enter into a civil
society is called the sovereign, and this sovereign may be thought of, metaphorically at least,
as an individual person with a unified will. This principle is important, for while actual
individuals may naturally hold different opinions and wants according to their individual
circumstances, the sovereign as a whole expresses the general will of all the people.

LMS
Rousseau defines this general will as the collective need of all to provide for the common
good of all. For Rousseau, the most important function of the general will is to inform the
creation of the laws of the state. These laws, though codified by an impartial, noncitizen
“lawgiver,” must in their essence express the general will.
Accordingly, though all laws must uphold the rights of equality among citizens and
individual freedom, Rousseau states that their particulars can be made according to local
circumstances. Although laws owe their existence to the general will of the sovereign, or the
collective of all people, some form of government is necessary to carry out the executive
function of enforcing laws and overseeing the day-to-day functioning of the state.
Rousseau writes that this government may take different forms, including monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, according to the size and characteristics of the state, and that all
these forms carry different virtues and drawbacks. He claims that monarchy is always the
strongest, is particularly suitable to hot climates, and may be necessary in all states in times
of crisis.
He claims that aristocracy, or rule by the few, is most stable, however, and in most states is
the preferable form. Rousseau acknowledges that the sovereign and the government will
often have a frictional relationship, as the government is sometimes liable to go against the
general will of the people.
Rousseau states that to maintain awareness of the General Will, the sovereign must convene
in regular, periodic assemblies to determine the general will, at which point it is imperative
that individual citizens vote not according to their own personal interests but according to
their conception of the general will of all the people at that moment.
As such, in a healthy state, virtually all assembly votes should approach unanimity, as the
people will all recognize their common interests. Furthermore, Rousseau explains, it is
crucial that all the people exercise their sovereignty by attending such assemblies, for
whenever people stop doing so, or elect representatives to do so in their place, their
sovereignty is lost.
Foreseeing that the conflict between the sovereign and the government may at times be
contentious, Rousseau also advocates for the existence of a tribunate, or court, to mediate in
all conflicts between the sovereign and the government or in conflicts between individual
people.
Analysis

LMS
Rousseau’s central argument in The Social Contract is that government attains its right to
exist and to govern by “the consent of the governed.” Today this may not seem too extreme
an idea, but it was a radical position when The Social Contract was published. Rousseau
discusses numerous forms of government that may not look very democratic to modern eyes,
but his focus was always on figuring out how to ensure that the general will of all the people
could be expressed as truly as possible in their government.
He always aimed to figure out how to make society as democratic as possible. At one point in
The Social Contract, Rousseau admiringly cites the example of the Roman republic’s comitia
to prove that even large states composed of many people can hold assemblies of all their
citizens. Just as he did in his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau borrows ideas from the most
influential political philosophers of his day, though he often comes to very different
conclusions.
For example, though his conception of society as being akin to an individual person resonates
with Hobbes’s conception of the Leviathan (see chapter 7, Thomas Hobbes), Rousseau’s
labeling of this metaphorical individual as the sovereign departs strongly from Hobbes,
whose own idea of the sovereign was of the central power that held dominion over all the
people. Rousseau, of course, believed the sovereign to be the people and to always express
their will.
In his discussion of the tribunate or the court that mediates in disputes between governmental
branches or among people, Rousseau echoes ideas about government earlier expressed by
Locke. Both Locke’s and Rousseau’s discussions of these institutions influenced the system
of checks and balances enshrined in the founding documents of the United States. The Social
Contract is one of the single most important declarations of the natural rights of man in the
history of Western political philosophy.
It introduced in new and powerful ways the notion of the “consent of the governed” and the
inalienable sovereignty of the people, as opposed to the sovereignty of the state or its ruler(s).
It has been acknowledged repeatedly as a foundational text in the development of the modern
principles of human rights that underlie contemporary conceptions of democracy.
3.3.5. Rousseau’s General Will
The belief that man, by nature, is good was espoused by the French philosopher, Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712-1778). He believed that people in the state of nature were innocent and at
their best and that they were corrupted by the unnaturalness of civilization. In the state of
nature, people lived entirely for themselves, possessed an absolute independence, and were
content. According to Rousseau, in the state of nature, people tended to be isolated, war was
absent, and their desires were minimal and circumscribed (i.e., commensurate with their basic
survival needs). People did not have the drive to acquire more possessions.

LMS
There was plenty to go around, an absence of reliance on others, and no real need for
extensive social interaction. However, there did exist an unreflective sympathy and general
compassion toward others that was indiscriminate and not based on merits. In the state of
nature egoism was absent and compassion was present. Rousseau saw compassion for the
undeserving in particular and for mankind in general to be the greatest of the virtues. He
regarded contempt of another, which could lead to hurt feelings, as a vice and as always bad.
Rousseau wanted no one's feelings to be hurt. He felt that a proper society had no place for
blame, criticism, judgment, comparison with others, and the distinction of worth among men.
He said it was wrong to recognize distinctions because this makes people unequal. It was
worse to be affronted than to be injured. What mattered to Rousseau were a person's good
intentions rather than his achievements or outer appearances.
Rousseau proclaimed the natural goodness of man and believed that one man by nature is just
as good as any other. For Rousseau, a man could be just without virtue and good without
effort. According to Rousseau, man in the state of nature was free, wise, and good and the
laws of nature were benevolent. It follows that it was civilization that enslaved and corrupted
man and made him unnatural.
Because in the order of nature all men were equal, it also follows that distinction and
differentiation among men are the products of culture and civilization. Because man is by
nature a saint, it must be the corrupting influence of society that is responsible for the
misconduct of the individual.
Corruption by Civilization: The Origin of Inequality
The fundamental problem for Rousseau is not nature or man but instead is social institutions.
Rousseau's view is that society corrupts the pure individual. Arguing that men are not
inherently constrained by human nature, Rousseau claims that men are limited and corrupted
by social arrangements. Conceiving of freedom as an absolute, independent of any natural
limitations, Rousseau disavows the world of nature and its inherent laws, constraints, and
regulations.
Rousseau held that reason had its opportunity but had failed, claiming that the act of
reflection is contrary to nature. Rousseau asserts that man's natural goodness has been
depraved by the progress he has made and the knowledge he has acquired. He proceeded to
attack the Age of Reason by emphasizing feeling, the opposite of reason, as the key to reality
and the future. His thought thereby foreshadowed and gave impetus to the Romantic
Movement. Rousseau assigned primacy to instinct, emotion, intuition, feelings, and passion.
He believed that these could provide better insights into what is good and real than could
reason. Rousseau thus minimized reason and differences in the moral worth of individuals.

LMS
He failed to realize that freedom is meaningless in the absence of reason. He did not grasp
that reason connects the moral subject to the world of values. Rousseau observed that
although life was peaceful in the state of nature, people were unfulfilled. They needed to
interact in order to find actualization. Evil, greed, and selfishness emerged as human society
began to develop. As people formed social institutions, they developed vices. One such
institution was private property that encouraged avarice and self-interest. Rousseau viewed
private property as a destructive, impulsive, and egotistical institution that rewarded greed
and luck.
Civil society thus was born when people began fencing off their property, claiming that it was
theirs, and finding that other people agreed with them. Depravity is due to the corruption of
man's essence by civilization. For Rousseau, civil society resulted from the degeneration of a
basically good state of nature. Man's problems arose because of civil society.
He believed that the state of nature changed because it was internally unstable. For example,
because talents were not distributed equally among persons, the balance that existed in the
state of nature was disturbed and with inequality came conflicting interests. The more
talented, able, and intelligent people brought about advances in science, technology,
commerce, and so on. Because people simply are born with certain natural endowments, a
person cannot be praised for having talent or blamed for not having it.
Rousseau saw talent as naturally leading to achievement. Inequality developed as some

people produced more and earned more. He failed to acknowledge the importance of
motivation, industry, and volitional use of one's reason and other potentialities. The
perspective of many of today's environmentalists can be traced back to Rousseau who
believed that the more men deviated from the state of nature, the worse off they would be.
Espousing the belief that all degenerates in men's hands, Rousseau taught that men would be
free, wise, and good in the state of nature and that instinct and emotion, when not distorted by
the unnatural limitations of civilization, are nature's voices and instructions to the good life.
Rousseau's idea of "noble savage" stands in direction opposition to the man of culture. People
were no longer isolated and began to depend on each other.
Those who just happen to have talents create new products and the desire for them. Buyers
and sellers depend on each other but these dependencies are unequal because of the existence
of a pyramid of ability. Rousseau contends that, as a result, the talented acquire property and
become ambitious. All, including those without talent, become competitive, rivalrous,
jealous, power-hungry, prestige seeking and desirous for superiority over others. Civil society
transforms men from isolated beings with limited wants into the warlike creatures found in a
Hobbesian state of nature.

LMS
For Rousseau, civil society is a state of war. Rousseau maintains that people did not have the
right to rise above subsistence without everyone's consent. Everything changed as civil
society developed, but permission was not given for things to change. He contends that it is
wrong to change the condition of all without asking.
Rousseau is distressed that some people become relatively poorer without having lost
anything. Not only are their feelings hurt, their right to stagnate has been violated. The poor,
weak, and indolent did not want to change, but things around them changed, forcing them to
steal or receive subsistence from the rich.
Rousseau thought private property to be the source of social ills. He considered that private
ownership of property tended to corrupt men and destroys their character and regarded the
man without property (i.e., the noble savage) to be the freest.
Although he did not actually support the abolition of private property, he believed that private
property should be minimal and should be distributed equally among the members of the
society. Rousseau anticipated the need for the state to minimize private property. He wanted
the property of the state to be as great and powerful as possible, and that of the citizens to be
as small and weak as possible.
With private property being so limited, the state would need to apply very little force in order
to lead the people. Rousseau says that it is impossible to go back to the state of primitive
natural man. He says that men need to be governed as they now are and that any future
change in human nature will come later as a result of re-education to indoctrinate individuals
to believe that the public interest is their personal interest.
A New Social Contract
Rousseau advocates a new corrective social contract as a blueprint through which a proper
society can be built. He says that we should seek unanimous agreement with respect to a new
social contract that eliminates the problem of dependence on one another while permitting
each person to obey only himself and to remain as free as before. This can be accomplished
through total alienation of each associate to the whole community.
He calls for a total merger in which each individual gives up his right to control his life in
exchange for an equal voice in setting the ground rules of society. Rousseau appeals to people
to surrender their individual rights to a new moral and collective body with one will. The
public person formed by social contract, the republic, has a will he calls the "general will."
What it wills is the true interest of what everyone wants whether they realize it or not. When
you are forced to obey it, you really are obeying yourself, the true and free you. According to
Rousseau's theory of social contract, people leave an anarchic state of nature by voluntarily
transferring their personal rights to the community in return for security of life and property.

LMS
He argues that people should form a society to which they would completely surrender
themselves. By giving up their rights, they actually create a new entity in the form of a public
person that would be directed by a general will. When people join the community, they are
voluntarily agreeing to comply with the general will of the community.
The General Will
The idea of the general will is at the heart of Rousseau's philosophy. The general will is not
the will of the majority. Rather, it is the will of the political organism that he sees as an entity
with a life of its own. The general will is an additional will, somehow distinct from and other
than any individual will or group of individual wills. The general will is, by some means,
endowed with goodness and wisdom surpassing the beneficence and wisdom of any person or
collection of persons. Society is coordinated and unified by the general will.
Rousseau believed that this general will actually exist and that it demands the unqualified
obedience of every individual. He held that there is only one general will and, consequently,
only one supreme good and a single overriding goal toward which a community must aim.
The general will is always a force of the good and the just. It is independent, totally
sovereign, infallible, and inviolable.
The result is that all powers, persons, and their rights are under the control and direction of
the entire community. This means that no one can do anything without the consent of all.
Everyone is totally dependent on everybody for all aspects of their lives. Such universal
dependency eliminates the possibility of independent individual achievement.
In addition, when the individual joins society in order to escape death or starvation, he can be
a sacrificial victim ready to give up his life for others. Life is a gift made conditional by the
state. All power is transferred to a central authority or sovereign that is the total community.
Major decisions are made by a vote by all in what Rousseau calls a plebiscite that is
something like a town meeting without the benefit of debate.
A legislator proposes laws but does not decide on them. The legislator is a person or an
intellectual elite body that works out carefully worded alternatives, brings people together,
and has people vote with the results binding on all. The authority of the legislator derives
from his superior insight, charisma, virtue, and mysticism.
The legislator words the propositions of the plebiscite so that the "right" decision will result.
The right decisions are those that change human nature. The unlimited power of the state is
made to appear legitimate by the apparent consent of the majority. Between plebiscites, the
government (i.e., the bureaucracy) governs by decree. The government interprets the laws
and settles each case based on the perceived merits. Both executive and judicial, the
government is a bureaucracy with huge discretionary powers.

LMS
The legislator is over and above this bureaucracy. In a total democracy, the real government
is the bureaucracy that applies the law to day-to-day situations. Rousseau was an advocate of
the ancient idea of the omnipotence of the lawgiver. Rulers are in some way attuned to the
dictates of the general will and able to incorporate these dictates into specific laws. No one
can challenge these laws because their source is the wise and beneficent general will.
Rousseau permits no disobedience of the general will once its decisions have been made.
Man's will must be subordinated and he must abide by the general will even though he thinks
he disagrees with it. The person who "disagrees" with the general will must be mistaken.
According to Rousseau, each person wants to be good and therefore would want to obey the
general will. It follows that when a person disagrees with the general will, he would actually
be acting contrary to his own basic desires and that it would be proper to use force to attain
his agreement with the general will. The general will reflects the real will of each member of
society. By definition, the general will is always right.
The general will is the overriding good to which each person is willing to sacrifice all other
goods, including all particular private wills. The "good citizen" assigns to society's laws a
goodness and wisdom exceeding his goodness and wisdom. It is therefore quite possible to
have a conflict between what a person thinks that he wills and that which he truly wills. The
good citizen is able to identify his own will with the general will.
If the general will is supreme, then citizens are free only to obey in equal servitude. People
who refuse to comply with the general will can be forced to comply. If people want to be
good, the rulers can make them be good. Rousseau thus viewed the political community as
the proper means for liberating men from their mistaken perceptions and from the conflicts
and corruptions of society.
Rousseau's idea of the general will is related to the organic concept of the state as not merely
real but more real than the individuals who live within its bounds. What matters is the whole
of which the individual is a part. The individual person and his ideas, values, and goals mean
nothing. By regarding human beings as means to higher ends, rather than an end in
themselves, Rousseau greatly contributed to the intellectual collectivization of man.
It was a small step to Hegel's contention that the general will is the will of the state and that
the state is the earthly manifestation of the Absolute. Furthermore, there was an easy
transition from Hegel's political philosophy to the totalitarian systems of Marx and Hitler.
Rulers who followed Rousseau's philosophy were able to demonstrate a vibrant but deceptive
humanitarianism. They expressed love for humanity while at the same time crushing those
who disagreed with the general will. For example, during the French Revolution, individuals
like Robespierre were given enormous power to express the general will.

LMS
Of course, dictators like Robespierre turned the general will into an expression of their own
wills. Likewise, today when politicians refer to the good or aim of society, they are almost
always referring to the good or aim of an individual or collection of individuals who want to
impose their own vision upon others.
On Education from Nature
Rousseau maintained that the state must control all schooling because the objective of
schooling is to develop citizens who want only what the community (i.e., the general will)
wants. Because mankind was infinitely perfectible, human failings could be eradicated by
education. Rousseau wants to mold and socialize the individual through universal public
education. He wants to make men more docile and to believe that when they are obeying the
law they are only obeying themselves.
According to Rousseau, obeying the law is always in one's own interest – the interest of one's
higher self, not the self who wants to be made an exception. In Rousseau's educational
system, a child would explore nature and its requirements in order to learn what he needs to
know. The child would have a tutor who would secretly devise situations in which nature
would teach what the tutor wants it to teach. Believing he was free, the student would equate
his will, with his mentor's will. This would serve to condition him to equate his own true will
with the general will.
Rousseau, like Plato before him and Mann and Dewey after him, believed in the perfectibility
of man provided that he was educated so that he could not want to do evil. In Emile,
Rousseau portrays the ideal education in the story of a child, who, free from the restrictions
of an adult's will, is able to study nature and thus learn what he needs to know.
However, Emile has an enlightened tutor, whose purpose is to secretly manufacture the
conditions under which nature will teach the student what the tutor wants the student to learn.
Through the tutor's disguised intentions, the student, by equating his own will with the will of
his tutor, is conditioned to identify his own will with the general will.
3.3.6. Summary
Rousseau has been subject to multiple interpretations, often contradictory and caricatured and
beyond these, critics have been sometimes simplistic, but the attentive reader discovers in
these works an original and coherent thinker, which was fundamentally interested in the real
contract, and repressing the world of violence. His key political idea was the general will
rather than the social contract.
Political society is seen by Rousseau as involving the total voluntary subjection of every
individual to the collective general will; this being both the sole source of legitimate
sovereignty and something that cannot but be directed towards the common good.

LMS
So is this the famous concept of state of nature, which is often subject to interpretations and
caricatures which, far from representing a given reality means a methodological hypothesis
and a working instrument for Rousseau. If we subtract by assumptions that the company has
brought to man, we get a condition that probably never existed but which, through
abstraction, to enlighten our present situation. Thus emerges the natural man, methodological
fiction. What are its characteristics?
We include it as opposed to those of animals, this simple machine. Consciousness and

freedom define man, always able to acquiesce or resist his impressions, as Rousseau said in
his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
Thus, the man is everywhere in chains. How to remedy the evil? How can democracy solve
the problem? The problem arises in such clear terms: to find a form of society where man can
recognize himself, obey the law and at the same time, be free. The optics of Rousseau will be
in this quest, normative. So, the foundation of the right political bases its object of study.
Q1. Discuss critically the Social Contract theory according to Thomas Hobbes.
Q2. Critically examine John Locke’s views on the state of nature and the reasons for
man leaving it to enter into a social contract.
Q3. Critically analyse the importance and relevance of Rousseau’s concept of General
Will for modern representative governments.
Q4. Discuss John Locke’s ideas on natural law and natural rights.
Q5. Rousseau’s General Will is both the most disputed part as well as the most
fundamental aspect for his philosophy. Discuss.
Q6. Critically examine John Locke’s views on the state of nature and social contract.
Q7. Critically discuss the nature and characteristics of Rousseau’s General Will.
Q8. Write a short note on Hobbes’ views on human nature.
1. Modern Political Thought from Hobbes to Marx – M. Hampsher
2. A History of Political Thought: Plato to Marx – S. Mukherjee

and S. Ramaswamy.

Unit – 4: J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of Women
LMS
Unit – 4
J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of
Women
4.1. John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873)
Introduction
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was an English philosopher and economist. He wrote one of his
most famous essays, Utilitarianism, in 1861. Utilitarianism is a moral and legal theory, with
origins in classical philosophy that was famously propagated in the 18th and 19th centuries by
Jeremy Bentham. Its general argument is that morality consists in bringing about the best
state of affairs, and that the best state of affairs is the state with the greatest amount of
happiness for the greatest number of people.
Utilitarianism continues to be an important theory in modern philosophy. Knowledge of

Mill's own personal biography is integral to understanding the context for his essay. Mill was
raised by his father, James Mill, to be a strict utilitarian. Jeremy Bentham also aided in Mill's
upbringing, and Mill was deeply influenced by Bentham's writings. Mill's childhood was
rigid and intellectual, and when, at twenty-one he began to question some of his beliefs, he
suffered a nervous breakdown.
Mill later struggled with his sense that utilitarianism was too unemotional and that it failed to
capture or understand the "higher" pleasures. Thus, Mill's writings should be understood as
the product of a struggle to reconcile Utilitarianism with complexities that Bentham's theory
failed to acknowledge.
However, Mill never rejected utilitarianism as a moral theory, and he continued to use
Bentham's framework of pleasure fulfillment throughout his own writings. Mill wrote
Utilitarianism later in life, and it upholds a more complex version of utilitarianism, yet one
that still embraces the most basic premises of Bentham and Mill's father.
4.1.1. Early life and career
The eldest son of the British historian, economist, and philosopher James Mill, he was born in
his father’s house in Pentonville, London. He was educated exclusively by his father, who
was a strict disciplinarian. By his eighth year he had read in the original Greek Aesop’s
Fables, Xenophon’s Anabasis, and the whole of the historian Herodotus. He was acquainted
with the satirist Lucian, the historian of philosophy Diogenes Laërtius, the Athenian writer
and educational theorist Isocrates, and six dialogues of Plato. He had also read a great deal of
history in English.

LMS
At the age of eight he started Latin, the geometry of Euclid, and algebra and began to teach
the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all
the Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities and, by the age of
10 could read Plato and the Athenian statesman Demosthenes with ease. About the age of 12,
he began a thorough study of Scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle’s logical
treatises in the original.
In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied the work of the
Scottish political economist and philosopher Adam Smith and that of the English economist
David Ricardo. While the training the younger Mill received has aroused amazement and
criticism, its most important aspect was the close association it fostered with the strenuous
character and vigorous intellect of his father.
From May 1820 until July 1821, Mill was in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham,
brother of Jeremy Bentham, the English utilitarian philosopher, economist, and theoretical
jurist. Copious extracts from a diary kept at this time show how methodically he read and
wrote, studied chemistry and botany, tackled advanced mathematical problems, and made
notes on the scenery and the people and customs of the country.
He also gained a thorough acquaintance with the French language. On his return in 1821 he
added to his work the study of psychology and of Roman law, which he read with John
Austin, his father having half decided on the bar as the best profession open to him. This
intention, however, was abandoned, and in 1823, when he had just completed his 17th year, he
entered the examiner’s office of the India House.
After a short probation he was promoted in 1828 to assistant examiner. For 20 years, from
1836 (when his father died) to 1856, Mill had charge of the British East India Company’s
relations with the Indian states, and in 1856 he became chief of the examiner’s office. In 1822
Mill had read P.-E.-L., Dumont’s exposition of Bentham’s doctrines in the Traités de
Législation, which made a lasting impression upon him.
4.1.2. Mill’s View on liberty
J.S. Mill was a great advocate of the individual liberty and stood for restricting government’s
interference in the life of the individual to the minimum possible. He held that democracy,
public opinion and collectivism were dangerous to individual liberty and must be kept within
their sphere of activity. He believed that if every individual was allowed to develop his
personality as he liked, it would enrich the world by providing a variety of characters. This
way alone the human beings shall be able to get the maximum happiness.
According to Mill, “such are the differences among human beings in their sources of
pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain and the operation of their different physical and moral
agencies that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither

LMS
obtain their fair share of happiness nor grow up to the mental, moral and aesthetic stature of
which they are capable”.
He argued that individual should be left free to provide variety of characters in the society.
Any effort on the part of the government to restriction was bound to lead in monarchy and
mediocrity which was regarded as hindrance towards the progress and development of the
society. He was in fact of the view that so long the actions of an individual concerned him
alone and did not in any way prejudices the interests of the others; they should be left free
without any limitations and restrictions from the society.
However, he permitted the state to impose restrictions on the liberty of the individual if it
resulted in an injury to the interests of the other members of the community. He thus, gave an
exposition of this principle which states, “The sole end for which mankind is warranted
individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their member is
self protection”.
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercise over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good either physical or
moral is not a sufficient warrant. The only part of the conduct of any members for which he is
amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself
his independence is absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is
sovereign.
As such, from this point of view an observation can be made that Mill has actually divided
the individual’s actions into two parts namely self-regarding and others-regarding. According
to him, an individual is completely free when it comes to certain actions that pertain to his/
her own personal interest. But when it comes to his/her actions that has certain possible
chances of effecting the other members of the community, the state or the society can put
necessary restrictions on those actions of the individual.
However, this divisions of human actions on the basis of self and others regarding seems to
be quite fascinating but it has its own defects because it is difficult to draw a line of
distinction between the two categories of human actions. He further extended his view with a
realization that there is hardly any action of an individual which does not affect the other
members in the society and hence he permitted that the state can interfere in the spheres of
self-regarding actions of the individual according to his/her own interest.
For instance, the state can prevent an individual from smoking in a gas station which
according to Mill is an act of promoting the self-interest of the individual and does not in any
way constitute the denial of individual’s liberty by its actions. Additionally, Mill has also
tried to defend the appropriate sphere of human liberty for which he included in the inward
domain of conscience, liberty of thought and feeling, absolute freedom of opinion and
sentiment of all subjects, scientific, moral, theological, practical or speculative.

LMS
According to him, the individual must also have freedom of taste and pursuits as well as right
to unite for any purpose which does not harm the other members in the society. He also made
a forceful plea for freedom of thought and asserted that the state has no justification to
suppress the individual from thinking independently even if he/she is wrong because he
believe that truth emerged out of collision of opinions. He opined that, every history testifies
that those very things which were not tolerated by the authorities in the past are now
recognized as good.
According to him, “if all mankind minus one were of one opinion and any one person were of
the contrary opinion; mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than
he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind”. Thus, in support of this
convention that suppression of an opinion is an evil, he quotes the examples of the execution
of Socrates and Jesus Christ.
He further argues that “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is
robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from
the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the
opportunity of exchanging error for truth if wrong they lose, what is almost as great a
benefit, the clever perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with
error”.
4.1.3. Mill’s concept of Representative government
According to Mill, the best form of government was not the one which was most efficient but
the one which serves in highest degree the purpose of a school of citizenship for the political
education and training of the citizens. He thus, asserted that the first important criterion of a
good government is that it must promote the virtue and intelligence of the people.
According to him, “government is not only a set of organized arrangement for public
business. It is also great influence acting on the human mind where its values should be
judged by its actions and not by contention.”
As such, the first thing to be considered in this regard is “how far does the government tend
to foster the moral and intellectual qualities of the citizens”. In other words, the main
criterion of a good government is the degree to which it tends to increase the sum of good
qualities among the governed, collectively and individually, rather than efficiency of its
administration body.
He considered the representative government as the best government because “it was a
means of bringing the general standard of intelligence and honesty existing in the community
and the individual intellect and virtue of its wisest members, more directly to bear upon the
government and investing them with greater influence on it, than they would in general have
under any other mode of organization.”

LMS
It may, however, be noted that Mill favored the representative government only for the
advanced nations and did not favor it for the backward and colonial people. He was also
aware of the shortcomings in the representative government prevailing in England at that
time and therefore suggested a number of reforms to improve its workings and to make it
fully representative and democratic.
As such, he was quite unhappy with the inadequate representation accorded to the minorities
and the tyrannical attitude of the majority. He therefore advocated the system of Proportional
Representation so as to ensure that section of the society gets representation in proportion to
its voting strength. He argued that in a really equal democracy every section of the
community must be represented proportionally.
According to him, only under such a system “a majority of the electors would always have a
majority of the representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have minority of
representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless they
are, there is no equal government but a government of inequality and privilege; one part of
the people rules over the rest; there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the
representation is withheld from them, contrary to just government, but above all, contrary to
the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation”.
Although, he wanted to give the right to vote to all without any distinction, he was also
equally convinced that all were not competent to exercise this right properly and intelligently.
He therefore, pleaded for greater weightage in voting for persons with better abilities and
capabilities. He insisted on property and educational qualifications for the voters.
As such, he emphasizes on the importance of education and stated that, “I regard it as wholly
inadmissible that any person should participate in the suffrage without being able to read,
write and I will add, perform the common operations of arithmetic. Justice demands, even
when the suffrage does not depend on it, that the means of attaining these elementary
acquirements should be within the reach of every person, either gratuitously or at the
expense not exceeding what the poorest who earn their own living can afford”.
Toward against the possibility of educated classes behaving in a tyrannical manner he stated
that, “it will be open to the poorest individual in the community to claim its privileges if he
can prove that in spite of all difficulties and obstacles, he is in point of intelligence entitled to
them”. He also insisted on property qualifications for the voters.
According to him, it is important that the assembly which votes the taxes, either general or
local, should be elected exclusively by those who pay something towards the taxes imposed.
Those who pay no taxes, disposing by their votes of other people’s money, have every motive
to be lavish and none to economize as far as money matters are concerned and any power of
voting possessed by them is a violation of the fundamental principle and free government, a
severance of power of control from the interest in its beneficial exercise.

LMS
Furthermore, he advocated for open or public voting system in contrast to secret ballot
system. He argued that the value of effectiveness of voting depended upon the manner in
which the franchise was exercised and asserted “the duty of voting like any other public duty
should be performed under the eye and criticism of the public”. On the other hand, he argued
that secret ballot system was likely to encourage selfishness.
He also stood for equal treatment of women and favor similar position for them as was
enjoyed by men in the society. He argued that sex alone should not be a disqualification
because the differences based on sex were solely due to external circumstances which could
easily be removed. These differences were the product of long domination of men over the
women and were bound to disappear once the women were given political and social
freedom.
Justifying the right of franchise for women Mill commented:
“I consider it entirely irrelevant to political rights, as differences in the color of the

hair, if there be any difference; women require it more than men, since being
physically weaker they are dependent on law and society for protection”.
Finally, he opposed the payment to the members of the parliament. He asserted that members
of the parliament were an honor and service for which the members need no payment. This,
according to him, would not only ensure efficiency and purity in administration but also lead
to economic prosperity. In view of non – payment to the members of the parliament, he
insisted that the elections should not be a charge on the candidate.
Once an individual is elected, he wanted them to be completely free to guide and instruct the
state. They should not act merely as an echo of the people and try to judge the matters
according to his own intelligence. He did not want that the people of high caliber should be
governed by the people of low caliber. On this count, he did not favor the idea of annual
elections to the parliament but an extension of local government based on new stimulus and
developed abilities.
4.1.4. Mill’s view on Position of women
According to Mill, the improvement of the position of women by giving them suffrage,
education and employment opportunities are but a stepping stone to progress and civility of
the society. He has rightly regarded that improvement in the position of women as a concern
not restricted to women alone, but to the entire humankind.
As such, on his essay “the Subjection of Women” published in 1869 stated an argument in
favor of equality between the sexes in the society. This essay offers both detailed
argumentation and passionate eloquence in opposition to the social and legal inequalities
commonly imposed upon women by a patriarchal culture. Just as in On Liberty, he defends
the emancipation of women on utilitarian grounds.

LMS
Thus, his essay “the subjection of Women” made a strong claim for equal status in three key
areas namely women’s right to vote, right to equal opportunities in education and
employment. As such, liberty and self-determination were two themes of human actions in a
society where liberty was believed to be the most precious and crucial issue for the existence
of a human’s well-being. He argued that equality is actually a legal right between the two
sexes in the society which is why both should enjoy and exercise it fully.
He pointed out that women’s capacities were spent seeking happiness not in their own lives,
but exclusively for the favour and affection of the other sex in the society. The parallel line
between the women and slave was used to depict the reality of the 19th century in England,
where on marriage, the women become subservient to her husband both physical being and
property.
For women, marriage was like Hobson’s choice, either marry and face the abuses and loss of
dignity that subjugation and subservient entailed, or remain single and get deprived of
educational and professional opportunities. Thus, a woman was not free within the marriage,
nor was she free to remain unmarried.
And so, his essay “the subjection of women” was a pioneering effort, rightly honored as one
of the first essays to discuss the inequality of women as a political problem and to consider its
sources and solutions in a scholarly manner. He asserted that the opposition to sexual equality
was not based on reason and hence did not lend credibility to the argument that women were
weak and subordinate to men.
According to him, the basis of such supposition was that it was derived from the generality of
the practice in the history of humankind, and hence was regarded as good. But he pointed out
that the subordination of women was only due to the fact that they were physically not strong
as men.
According to him, “so true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary and that
everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal
custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural”.
As such, women from childhood were taught to be submissive, yielding and accommodating,
rather than become independent with self-will and self-control. They were taught to live for
others, their husband and children where selfless devotion was considered to be the best
feminine trait, the glory of womanhood.
However, women continued to be denied this opportunity, for they were still born to a
particular place and were not free to do what they chose to. The modern world accepted this
general social practice of human equality, but not gender equality in all aspects of human life.
And thus, Mill argued that women could earn their liberation with the support from men and
that is by pleading for a relationship based on mutual friendship and respect.

LMS
He dismissed the idea that the nature of women was different because no one had ever seen a
free woman in a free society. If women were the way they were, it was because of years of
suppression and domination and had nothing to do with their nature or dispositions. He
believed that women were as bright and gifted as men, and once granted the same “eagerness
for fame” women would achieve the same height of success.
He rejected the idea that it was natural for a woman to be a mother and a wife, and felt that it
was the women who should be able to decide whether to marry and manage a house or to
pursue a career. He articulated and defended the right of women to be considered as free
rational beings capable of choosing the life they would like to lead for themselves, rather than
being dictated by what society thought they should be or do.
The women, according to Mill was worse than a slave, a personal body-servant of a despot
for her husband may compel her, claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a
human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her
inclinations. Thus, a marriage contract based on equality of married persons before law was
not only a sufficient, but a necessary condition for full and just equality between the sexes.
He further, acknowledges the family as the real school for learning the virtues of freedom and
liberation, yet it was here that sentiments of injustice, inequality and despotism were also
taught. The boy, by virtue of being a male, was treated and reared as if he was superior and
better, thus dismissing the needs and interests of one-half of humankind to bear the
consequences of subordinations and inhumanness.
And so, a just family on the contrary would nurture feelings of sympathy in equality and love,
rather than subordinations and command. He argued that the relationship between a man and
a woman in marriage should be based on mutual respect and love, giving due regard to one
another’s rights. This would make them self-reliant and self-sufficient.
He argued that men should not be trusted with absolute power because such exercise of
power within the family and marriage only leads to brutalization of women. He denied the
need of one having the power of decision making within the voluntary association between
two persons. In spite of his insistence on the need to restructure family relationship based on
equality and fairness, he continued to perceive the family as one where a man earned the
family income and a woman would take care of domestic affairs.
Thus, he pointed out that if women were allowed to exercise their faculties freely and fully,
the real beneficiary would be society, for it would be able to draw from a larger pool of
mental resources. He desired that the subjection of women be ended not merely by law alone,
but by education, opinions, habits and finally a change in family life itself.
4.1.5. Summary

LMS
Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill, is an essay written to provide support for the value of
utilitarianism as a moral theory, and to respond to misconceptions about it. Mill defines
utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ
in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be
weighted more heavily than baser pleasures. Furthermore, Mill argues that people's
achievement of goals and ends, such as virtuous living, should be counted as part of their
happiness.
Mill argues that utilitarianism coincides with "natural" sentiments that originate from
humans' social nature. Therefore, if society were to embrace utilitarianism as an ethic, people
would naturally internalize these standards as morally binding. Mill argues that happiness is
the sole basis of morality, and that people never desire anything but happiness.
He supports this claim by showing that all the other objects of people's desire are either
means to happiness, or included in the definition of happiness. Mill explains at length that the
sentiment of justice is actually based on utility, and that rights exist only because they are
necessary for human happiness.
Q1. Discuss critically J.S. Mill’s views on liberty.
Q2. Write a short note on Mill’s view on position of women
Q3. Examine J.S. Mill’s views on representative government and assess their
relevance today.
Q4. Describe J.S. Mill’s views on liberty and the limits of society’s control on the
actions of an individual.
1. A History of Political Thought: From Ancient Greece to Early

Christianity – J. Coleman
2. The History of Political Thought – A short Introduction – R.N.

Berki

Unit – 5: Hegel – Dialectics, State, Freedom
LMS
Unit – 5
Hegel: Dialectics, State, Freedom
5.1. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27th August 1770 – 14th November 1831)
Introduction
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (born August 27, 1770, Stuttgart, Württemberg [Germany]
—died November 14, 1831, Berlin), was a German philosopher who developed a dialectical
scheme that emphasized the progress of history and of ideas from thesis to antithesis and
thence to a synthesis. He was the last of the great philosophical system builders of modern
times. His work, following upon that of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and
Friedrich Schelling, thus marks the pinnacle of classical German philosophy.
As an absolute idealist inspired by Christian insights and grounded in his mastery of a

fantastic fund of concrete knowledge, Hegel found a place for everything—logical, natural,
human, and divine—in a dialectical scheme that repeatedly swung from thesis to antithesis
and back again to a higher and richer synthesis.
His influence has been as fertile in the reactions that he precipitated—in Søren Kierkegaard,
the Danish existentialist; in the Marxists, who turned to social action; in the logical
positivists; and in G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, both pioneering figures in British
analytic philosophy—as in his positive impact.
5.1.1. Early life
Hegel was the son of a revenue officer. He had already learned the elements of Latin from his
mother by the time he entered the Stuttgart grammar school, where he remained for his
education until he was 18. As a schoolboy he made a collection of extracts, alphabetically
arranged, comprising annotations on classical authors, passages from newspapers, and
treatises on morals and mathematics from the standard works of the period.
In 1788 Hegel went as a student to Tübingen with a view to taking orders, as his parents
wished. Here he studied philosophy and classics for two years and graduated in 1790. Though
he then took the theological course, he was impatient with the orthodoxy of his teachers; and
the certificate given to him when he left in 1793 states that, whereas he had devoted himself
vigorously to philosophy, his industry in theology was intermittent.
He was also said to be poor in oral exposition, a deficiency that was to dog him throughout
his life. Though his fellow students called him “the old man,” he liked cheerful company and
a “sacrifice to Bacchus” and enjoyed the company of women as well. His chief friends during

that period were a pantheistic poet, J.C.F. Hölderlin, his contemporary, and the nature
philosopher Schelling, five years his junior.
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Together they read the Greek tragedians and celebrated the glories of the French Revolution.
On leaving college, Hegel did not enter the ministry; instead, wishing to have leisure for the
study of philosophy and Greek literature, he became a private tutor. For the next three years
he lived in Berne, with time on his hands and the run of a good library, where he read Edward
Gibbon on the fall of the Roman Empire and De l’esprit des loix (1750; The Spirit of Laws),
by Charles Louis, baron de Montesquieu, as well as the Greek and Roman classics.
5.1.2. Hegel’s dialectical method
According to Hegel, the dialectical method was not merely a process by which logical ideas
can be developed but it was a process by which all ideas in the world were developed. As
such, dialectical method was one of the most outstanding contributions of Hegel to political
philosophy. He was greatly inspired by the earlier Greek thinkers and has even acknowledge
that the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates have used it.
According to him, each force in the world gave birth to an opposite force such as the
consequent event of the French Revolution and the unification of Germany under Napoleon.
With regard to contemporary political thinkers, he was highly influenced by Immanuel Kant,
Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Schelling.
He was of the opinion that the world is an endless moving equilibrium where contrary
sources supply the dynamism of history but balance of forces can never be permanent as it
always exhibits a continuity and direction for change and development in the world. He
strongly believed that the process of human civilization has not been in a positive straight line
but rather a kind of over-lapping movement.
According to him, the whole process of human evolution has followed along a definite
principle through the process of dialectics. He argued that the entire progress of human
civilization has undergone a definite stage such as being, non-being and becoming. In other
words, he called it as Thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
According to him, the whole process of human evolution started with an abstract universal
concept called the thesis such as, the belief that the earth is a flat surface and not a spherical
shape. This concept in turn gave rise to contradicting opinions which he called as antithesis
such as, the discovery of the earth as spherical shape and that the sun is the center of the
universe. As such, the thesis and antithesis were reconciled in a more concrete perspective by
combining only the good attributes of both the concepts giving rise to another idea which he
called synthesis. Thus, the conclusion was drawn that the earth is spherical in shape and that
it revolves around the sun.

In this way, the whole process of development continues till all the contradictions were
removed and finds a solution amicably. As such, he attempts to study and explain the
progress and changes of the human society and its related institutions.
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Prof. Wayper has rightly commented that, Hegel’s dialectic as “a new system of synthetic
logic replacing the old system of analytic logic, a principle of self-movement through
contradiction towards the final goal of perfect realization of spirit”.
Thus, Hegel believe that accurate reason of any contradicting opinions is possible only
through a method of reduction which according to him, knowledge can emerged out only
from a detailed study and analysis of parts.
As such, the dialectics presupposes that ideas and beliefs were to be related to their
institutions and social structure where the sphere of subjective mind and the objective mind
had to converge. In other words, the categories of the subject and object were to go together
just as theory and practical aspects of any human activity.
He further argued that, the dialectical method did not just record and observe the ideas but it
tries to make an attempt to build an edifice of a well-connected discourse which an individual
can accept or reject it for it accepts only dialogue and conversation as the very basis of
resolving any human issues. It is in fact, a constant endeavor of converting every occasion of
non-agreement into an occasion of agreement.
According to Hegel, dialectics is the only ‘true method’ for comprehending pure thought
which he describes it as “the indwelling tendency outwards by which the one-sidedness and
limitation of the predicates of understanding is seen in its true light. The dialectical principle
constitutes the life and soul of scientific progress, the dynamic which alone gives immanent
connect and necessity to the body of science”.
Consequently, he gave an example of the use of dialectics method in our human

consciousness, but a more comprehensive political use was found in the philosophy of right
where the dialectical process reflects the evolution of world history from the ancient Greek to
his time.
According to him, there was a dialectical pattern in the world history where the state
represents the ultimate body; highly complex which was formed as a result of the synthesis of
contradictory elements at different levels of social life. It may however be mentioned that the
relationship between the contradiction and the synthesis was within the concepts shaped by
human practices and by natural phenomena.
According to Prof. Sabine, “Hegel’s dialectic was in truth a curious amalgam of historical
insight and realism of moral appeal, romantic idealization and religious mysticism. In
intension it was rational and an extension of logic method, but the intension defied exact
formulation”.

In practice, it played upon vague contracts of popular speech like real and apparent, essential
and accidental, permanent and transitory to which it could assign no precise meaning and for
which it supplied no clear criteria. His historical judgment and the moral evolution to which
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the dialectic was supposed to lend objectively were in fact as much conditioned by time and
place and personality as those of other philosophers that no such elaborate apparatus to unite
purposes so diverse and factors so, incapable of definition or empirical verification into a
method and to give that method precision was in fact impossible.
5.1.3. Hegel’s view of State
According to Hegel, state is essentially a divine institution and described it as the March of
God on this earth. He completely rejected the social contract theory which held that the state
was the result of a contract and looked on state as the evolution of the spirit which unfolds
itself in the actual shape of an organized world.
In other words, he considers the state as handiwork of God and an embodiment of reason. He
argued that the state possessed will and personality of its own as distinct from the wills and
personalities of the individuals which composed it. As such, the state was end in itself and
was the sole agency which worked to uplift the moral principles of mankind. It contributes to
the enrichment of the individual’s personality by purging him of petty and selfish elements.
According to Prof. Dunnings, “Hegel regarded the state as perfect rationality in the sense
that man has ethical status only as a member of the State and that the highest duty of a man is
not to develop his individual facilities, but to be a member of the State and faithfully fulfill his
allotted functions therein”.
Hegel comprehended state as an organism with a natural tendency to grow and develop itself.
According to him, it is greater than the parts which are intrinsically related to it and have
meaning only in so far as the whole gives them meaning. The state was a real person and its
will was the manifestation of perfect nationality that is the synthesis of universal and
individual freedom.
According to Prof. Wayper, “in all essential his is the most complete organic view of the
state. It is a natural growth. It is a whole greater than the parts which are intrinsically
related to it and which have meaning only in so far as the whole gives them meaning. It is an
end itself”.
Moreover, Hegel believed that the individual had no right against the state and the freedom
for the individual consisted in blind obedience to the dictates of the state. The organic nature
of the state envisaged by Hegel has been brought out by Prof. Gooch such as, “the state is not
formed by a grant of certain arbitrarily selected powers from the individuals but taking up
unto itself the whole circle of his life. The individual on the other hand cannot be conceived

apart from the community. He is what he is, as a member of it his whole life physical, moral
and intellectual is drawn from it”.
Hegel argued furthermore where he considers the state as the creator of all individual rights
and does not permit the individual any right against the state. He treats him as a
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representative of the unity of the universal and the individual will and completely
subordinates the man to the state. He treats him as an end and the individual as a means for
the attainment of that end. He considered state as an embodiment of the highest social
morality which laid the standard morality for the individual members.
According to C.E.M. Joad, “just as the personalities of all individuals in the state; so the
moral relations which each citizen has to each other citizen are merged in or transcend by
the social morality which is vested in the state. But this does not mean that the state is itself
moral or that it is bound by moral relations in its actions”.
As such, Hegel considers the state as more important association than the society in the same
manner in which the society is higher than the family. According to Bosanquet, “the
Hegelian state includes the entire hierarchy of institutions by which life is determined from
the family to the church and the university. It includes all of them, not as a mere collection of
growth of the country but as the structure which gives life and meaning to the political
whole”.
Thus, Joad has finally summed up those three important principles of Hegel’s concept on
state. They are; state can never act unrepresentatively as it reflects real will of individuals.
There is in fact complete identification between liberty and law, and real liberty being
attained in and through obedience to law which is the expression of real will.
Man is essentially social and he can never will with a purely individual will because the bond
which binds the individual to his fellows is an integral part of his personality and the state
contains within itself and represents the social morality of all its citizens but is itself above it
that is its relation to its subject and to other states cannot be made object of moral judgment.
5.1.4. Hegel’s view of Freedom
According to Hegel, freedom is the essence of man and its denial to a man tantamount to
denial of his personality and humanity. He however, did not take freedom from the negative
sense but gave a more positive and objective conception of freedom. As such, his idea of
freedom is not an individualistic in character but a social phenomenon which could be
possible only through participation in the moral life of the community. He asserted that
freedom could be possible only within the state because it meant willing of what was rational.
According to him, freedom consisted in giving total obedience to the state and in the
performance of one’s duty. According to Prof. Wayper, “man’s real will expels him to
identify himself with the spirit. The spirit is embodied in the state and therefore, it is his real

will to obey the dictates of the state. Indeed the dictates of the state are his real will. Thus, the
commands of the state give man his only opportunity to find freedom”.

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According to Prof. Barker, “Hegel’s freedom expresses itself in a series of outward

manifestation – first the law, then the rules of inward morality and finally the whole system of
institutions and influence that make for the righteousness in the national state”.
Thus, Hegel discusses his view about freedom in three stages of social structure. In the first
stage he discusses about personality, property and contract, followed by aspects of self-
determination in which according to him an individual is affected by the consciousness of
other individuals and finally he discusses about family, civil society and the state.
According to Hegel, an individual’s right and freedom can be secured only in political
institution under certain laws, for example, the existence of certain right and freedom in our
present political systems. And so, every law must be abiding by certain rules so that no
individual in the society tends to violate it. Thus, the state would have maximum authority
over individual’s freedom for the sake of security.
5.1.5. Summary
Hegel was the last of the main representatives of a philosophical movement known as
German Idealism, which developed towards the end of the eighteenth century primarily as a
reaction against the philosophy of Kant, and whose main proponents, aside from Hegel,
include Fichte and Schelling. The movement played an important role in the philosophical
life of Germany until the fourth decade of the 19th century.
Like the other German Idealists, Hegel was convinced that the philosophy of Kant did not
represent the final word in philosophical matters, because it was not possible to conceive a
unified theory of reality by means of Kantian principles alone. For Hegel and his two
idealistic predecessors, a unified theory of reality is one which can systematically explain all
forms of reality, starting from a single principle or a single subject.
For Hegel, these forms of reality included not only solar systems, physical bodies and the
various guises assumed by organic life, for example, plants, animals and human beings, but
also psychic phenomena, social and political forms of organization as well as artistic
creations and cultural achievements such as religion and philosophy.
Hegel believed that one of the essential tasks of philosophy was the systematic explanation of
all these various forms starting from one single principle, in other words, in the establishment
of a unified theory of reality.

He believed this because only a theory of this nature could permit knowledge to take the
place of faith. Hegel’s goal here, namely the conquest of faith, places his philosophical
programme, like that of the other German Idealists, within the wider context of the
philosophy of the German Enlightenment.

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Q1. Explain the structure of the Hegelian dialectics and how it is designed to bring out
the truth using arguments and counter-arguments.
Q2. Critically discuss Hegel’s views on freedom.
Q3. Describe the characteristics of the Hegelian state.
Q4. Write a short note on Hegel’s dialectics method.
1. An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History – Stephen Houlgate
2. Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness – Robert B

Pippin

Unit – 6: Marx – Historical Materialism, State and Class Struggle
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Unit – 6
Marx: Historical Materialism, State and Class Struggle
6.1. Karl Marx (5th May 1818 – 14th March 1883)
Introduction
Karl Heinrich Marx, (born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Germany]—died
March 14, 1883, London, England), was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and
economist. He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
(1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the
history of the socialist movement. He also was the author of the movement’s most important
book, Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body
of thought and belief known as Marxism.
Marx was the oldest surviving boy of nine children. His father, Heinrich, a successful lawyer,
was a man of the Enlightenment, devoted to Kant and Voltaire, who took part in agitations
for a constitution in Prussia. His mother, born Henrietta Pressburg, was from Holland. Both
parents were Jewish and were descended from a long line of rabbis, but, a year or so before
Karl was born, his father—probably because his professional career required it—was
baptized in the Evangelical Established Church.
Karl was baptized when he was six years old. Although as a youth Karl was influenced less
by religion than by the critical, sometimes radical social policies of the Enlightenment, his
Jewish background exposed him to prejudice and discrimination that may have led him to
question the role of religion in society and contributed to his desire for social change.
6.1.1. Early years
Marx was educated from 1830 to 1835 at the high school in Trier. Suspected of harboring
liberal teachers and pupils, the school was under police surveillance. Marx’s writings during
this period exhibited a spirit of Christian devotion and a longing for self-sacrifice on behalf of
humanity. In October 1835 he matriculated at the University of Bonn. The courses he
attended were exclusively in the humanities, in such subjects as Greek and Roman mythology

and the history of art. He participated in customary student activities, fought a duel, and spent
a day in jail for being drunk and disorderly. He presided at the Tavern Club, which was at
odds with the more aristocratic student associations, and joined a poets’ club that included
some political activists. A politically rebellious student culture was, indeed, part of life at
Bonn. Many students had been arrested; some were still being expelled in Marx’s time,
particularly as a result of an effort by students to disrupt a session of the Federal Diet at
Frankfurt.
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Marx, however, left Bonn after a year and in October 1836 enrolled at the University of
Berlin to study law and philosophy. Marx’s crucial experience at Berlin was his introduction
to Hegel’s philosophy, regnant there, and his adherence to the Young Hegelians. At first he
felt repugnance toward Hegel’s doctrines; when Marx fell sick it was partially, as he wrote
his father, “from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view I detested.” The
Hegelian pressure in the revolutionary student culture was powerful, however, and Marx
joined a society called the Doctor Club, whose members were intensely involved in the new
literary and philosophical movement.
Marx first became a revolutionary and a communist and began to associate with communist
societies of French and German workingmen. Their ideas were, in his view, “utterly crude
and unintelligent,” but their character moved him: “The brotherhood of man is no mere
phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-
hardened bodies,” he wrote in his so-called “Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus
dem Jahre 1844” (written in 1844; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 [1959]).
The “German-French Yearbooks” proved short-lived, but through their publication Marx
befriended Friedrich Engels, a contributor who was to become his lifelong collaborator, and
in their pages appeared Marx’s article “Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie”
(“Toward the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right”) with its oft-quoted assertion
that religion is the “opium of the people.”
6.1.2. Marx’s Historical materialism
According to Marx, historical materialism is the actual application of the principle of

dialectical materialism to the development of the society. In other words, it is an economic
interpretation of the various phenomena of history. It starts with the simple truth that man
must live to eat and his survival depends on the success with which he can produce what he
wants.
According to him, production is the most important of all the human activities. The society is
the result of an attempt to secure the necessities of life. But the society is not able to produce
all that is required by the members, which inevitably gives rise to tension and stresses. The
form and structure of the society is thus determined by the conditions of production.

Accordingly he divided the history into four stages namely primitive communism (Asiatic
stage), ancient, feudal and capitalist. In all these stages, the class which controls the forces of
production controls the rest. This domination of one class over others naturally gave rise to
tensions and strains.
According to Marx, “all the social and intellectual relations, all religions and legal system,
all theoretical outlooks which emerge in the course of history, are derived from the material
conditions of life”.
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He further argues that, “upon the several forms of property, upon the social conditions of
existence, a whole super-structure is reared of various and peculiarly shaped feelings,
illusions, habits of thought and conceptions of life”.
The whole class produces and shapes these out of its material foundations and out of the
corresponding social conditions. As such, according to him, the progress of the society from
one stage to another is not the result of a change, but the result of the law of history.
In each stage each dominant class develops its opposite and as a result of clash between these
two opposites the new ruling class emerges. At the final stage the capitalist and the proletariat
stand face to face against each other. As a result of the clash between the two classes, a
classless society shall emerge.
It is however, before the emergence of the classless society there shall be a transitional stage
known as dictatorship of the proletariat which shall socialize the natural resources and
destroy the last remains of capitalism. He offers the theory of materialistic interpretation of
history thus; in the social production of their material life, man enters into definite relations
that are indispensable and independent of their wills; these relations of production
corresponds to a definite stage of the development of their material force of production.
Thus, the sum total of these relations of production makes up the economic structure of
society that is the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to
which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material
life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their existence, but rather it is their social existence,
that determines their consciousness.
He further argued that, at a certain stage of their development, the material forces of
production of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or what is
but a legal expression of the same thing with the property relations within which they have
been at work before. From forms of development of the productive force these relations turn
into their fetters. Then begin an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic
foundations the entire immense superstructure is more or less transformed. Thus, in this way
he finds a close relationship between the social relations and the productive forces.

As such, Marx’s materialistic interpretation of history is defective in so far as it ignores the
part played by the non-economic factors in the shaping of history. It also does not attach any
importance to human passion, sentiments, emotions and religion. No doubt the economic
factors influence human affairs, but it is certainly wrong to say that they exclusively
influence human actions.
According to Laski, “Marx’s insistence upon an economic background as the whole

explanation was radically false. The love of power herd instinct, rivalry and the desire of
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display all these are hardly less vital than the acquisitiveness which explains the strength of
material environment”.
Despite the above mention defect in the Marxian concept of materialistic interpretation of
history, it cannot be denied that it greatly broadened the study of history to include within its
purview things other than the stories of kings and battles. Thus, Marx deserves the credit for
broadening the basis of the study of history.
6.1.3. Marxian concept of State
According to Marx, the state is a class institution which reflects the interests and ideas of the
dominant class. It is an organized political power of one class for oppressing another. As
such, the modern bourgeoisie state was nothing more than the form of organization which the
bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal purposes for the mutual guarantee of their
property and interest.
According to Prof. Hunt, “in Marxist theory the state pre-eminently embodies that
superstructure which is created by the productive force of society and reflects the productive
relations as defined by the class struggle; and it thus stands guardian over the economic
order, which it protects with its army, legal system, police and other organs of physical or
moral compulsion. The democratic state is therefore a contradiction in terms, as democracy
cannot exist in any society which is divided, as it is under capitalism, into two antagonistic
and irreconcilable groups”.
Marx argued that with the disappearance of capital the state also disappear and classless and
stateless society shall emerge. He also considered the government as an obstructive rather
than a creative force in social evolution. He described it as an agency through which the
ruling class imposed its will upon the subject classes and maintained its privileged position in
economic matters. It was because of the control of the government that the ruling class was
able to make its will into law and enforce it over all.
The government is described in the communist manifesto as the executive of the modern state
or a committee for the management of the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. Thus,
Marx held the view that the ruling classes always tried to perpetuate their position and used

all the authority at their command to resist the changes. The major changes could be brought
about only by the working classes by organizing themselves.
He envisaged two stages of state revolution wherein the first stage involves the struggle of
the bourgeoisie against the feudalism as represented by absolute monarchy and its various
survivals. In such a struggle, the proletariat must support the bourgeoisie and then look
forward for an opportunity to capture the power from the bourgeoisie. He asserted that as
there existed fundamental antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, this
alliance was merely a tactical move.
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And so, in the second stage, the bourgeoisie which destroyed feudalism would itself be
destroyed by the proletariat in alliance with the left-wing bourgeoisie elements, which would
be later on discarded by the proletariat.
Thus, according to Prof. Hunt, “the role of bourgeois democracy was act as the foster mother
of the proletariat during the stage of pre-emancipation. The reforms that it affected, such as
extensions of franchise or of the workers’ right to combine, not only softened the reactionary
crust on society, but also provided the conditions under which the proletariat gained the
experience required to enable it to fulfill its historic mission”.
6.1.4. Marxian concept of class-struggle
According to Marx, the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
As such, his theory of class struggle is a logical corollary of his theory of economic
interpretation of history. He articulated the idea of human liberation distinct from political
emancipation where he tries to bring forth the collective and generic character of human life
which was real, so that the society would have to assume a collective character and coincide
with the life of the state.
As such, he asserted that it would be possible if individuals were freed from religion and
private property. The proletariat by being the universal class in chains would liberate itself
and human society. In every society there were two classes, the rich and the poor. One that
owned the means of production and the other that sold its labour. During different historical
phases, these two classes were known by different names and enjoyed different legal statuses
and privileges, but one thing was common, that in the course of all these phases, their
relationship had been one of exploitation and domination.
Marx wrote, “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and
journeyman, in other word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one
another”.
He objected to the idea of the middle-class historians that class struggle had ended with the
rise of the bourgeoisie, just as he opposed the perceptions of the classical economist that
capitalism was eternal and immutable. He argued that the rising consciousness and power
among the industrial proletariat and emphasized that it was their desire to bring about
economic equality that kept class struggle and revolutionary change alive.
As such, according to him, class struggle would not be a permanent feature of society, but
were necessitated by the historical development of production. Class struggle would end with
the destruction of capitalism, for communism would be a classless society. Thus, Class
symbolizes a collective unity to Marx in the same manner as the Nation in Hegel’s theory.
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Each class produced its own ideas and beliefs, and operated within a particular economic and
social system. The individual was important with respect to his membership within a class
which determines his moral convictions, aesthetic preferences and every kind of reasoning.
According to Marx an ideology played a pivotal role in controlling the oppressed class in the
society.
There were three main features of any ideas namely;
 The depiction of the existing order as entrenched in forces that were beyond human
control.
 Things were not arbitrary, but instituted by certain sections of people for their own
benefit.
 Ideas usually explained how the existing order benefited everyone in the society, and
 Ideas depicted the existing order as beneficial in a particular way such as promoting
the interests of the dominant economic class and protect class privileges.
6.1.5. Summary
The interaction recognition antinomy thesis connects capitalist production, the state and
classes through a conception of interaction, recognition and antinomy. Rather than
recapitulate the overall argument of the thesis, the significance of three specific points may
be brought out, concerning the nature and injustice of exploitation; the derivation of the state;
and the transition from class in itself to class for itself. The first suggests a novel explanation
for Analytical Marxism’s ‘total disappearance’.
Exploitation and Injustice Production with wage-labour for continuous money maximization
was characterised as exploitative by adopting a system universalisability conception of
exploitation. As this conception of exploitation rests on a system-level universalisability test,
it raises the challenge of explaining why some maxims cannot be thought as universal laws of
human nature.
An interactional account of asocial relation suggests an answer. A maxim may require

another to perform a standard action of social affecting to the one who adopts it. The
conception of a hypothetical world that includes a maxim’s counterpart universal law of
human nature will contain a logical contradiction if this standard action of social affecting is
incompatible with how others must act once the maxim is known to be permissible, and
adopted by all who satisfy its conditions.
To characterize capital as exploitative, there must be a logical contradiction in the conception

of a hypothetical world that includes the universal law of human nature: everyone, when their
monetary wealth is at stake, cannot but put their possessions to economic use, and cannot but
thereby maximize their monetary wealth.
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The issue is whether all capitalist firms and all those who perform the function of wage-
labour can maximize their monetary wealth, just by virtue of these functions. Wage-labourers
cannot succeed, owing to capitalist firms’ money-maximizing response. Marx’s value theory
is relevant for a conception of capitalist labour-exploitation, for its distinction between use-
value and value explains why this is so. The system universalisability conception of
exploitation facilitates a sys-tem universalisability principle of justice, which says: exclusive
advantages obtained by pursuing system-reinforced ends that cannot be universalized are
unjust.
Q1. Critically discuss Marxist ideas of class struggle.
Q2. Critically examine the Marxian theory of historical materialism.
Q3. “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common
affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”. Discuss the Marxian concept of state in the
light of this statement.
Q4. Explain why and how according to Marx a class struggle in society will
eventually lead to a revolution and the establishment of communism.
1. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought – David McLellan
2. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life – Jonathan Sperber
3. Karl Marx's Theory of History – G. A. Cohen

Question Bank – University
LMS
Question Bank – University

5/H-18 (v) (syllabus-2016)
2019
( October )
POLITICAL SCIENCE
( Honours )
( PSC-o5 )
( Western Political Thought )
Marks : 75
Time : 3 hours
The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions
Answer any five questions
1. Examine Aristotle's reasons for defence of slavery. 15
2. Critically discuss Plato's ideas on the ideal State. 15
3. What, according to Aristotle, are the causes of revolution and the measures for its
prevention? 8+7= 15
4. Discuss Machiavelli's views on the relationship between morality and politics. 15
5. Critically examine John Locke’s views on the state of nature and social contract. 15
6. Critically discuss the nature and characteristics of Rousseau’s General Will. 15
7. Discuss critically J. S. Mill’s views on liberty. 15
8. Describe the characteristics of the Hegelian state. 15
9. Critically discuss Marxist ideas of class struggle. 15
10. Write short notes on any three of the following: 5x3 = 15

LMS
a) Mill's view on position of women

b) Marx on class struggle
c) Plato's view on communism
d) Hegel’s dialectics
e) Hobbes’ views on human nature
***
5/H-18 (v) (syllabus-2016)
2018
( October )
POLITICAL SCIENCE
( Honours )
( PSC-o5 )
Marks : 75
Time : 3 hours
1. Critically examine Plato’s ideas on communism of property. 15
2. Discuss Plato’s ideas on Justice. 15
3. Examine Aristotle’s views on the origin and nature of the state. 15
4. Critically examine Machiavelli’s views on statecraft. 15
5. Discuss John Locke’s ideas on natural law and natural rights. 15
6. Rousseau’s General Will is both the most disputed part as well as the most fundamental
aspect of his philosophy. Discuss. 15

LMS
7. Examine J.S. Mill’s views on representative government and assess their relevance today.
10+5= 15
8. Critically discuss Hegel’s views on freedom. 15
9. Critically examine the Marxian theory of historical materialism. 15
10. “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs
of the whole bourgeoisie”. Discuss the Marxian concept of state in the light of this statement.
15
***
5/H-18 (v) (syllabus-2016)
2017
( October )
POLITICAL SCIENCE
( Honours )
( PSC-o5 )
Marks : 75
Time : 3 hours
1. Write a critical note on Plato’s Ideal State. 15
2. Critically analyse Aristotle’s views on slavery. 15
3. Discuss Aristotle’s views on causes of revolution and measures for its prevention.
10+5= 15
4. Discuss Machiavelli’s views on the relationship between morality and politics. 15

LMS
5. Discuss critically the social contract theory according to Thomas Hobbes. 15
6. Critically examine John Locke’s views on the state of nature and the reason for man
leaving it to enter into a social contract. 15
7. Critically analyse the importance and relevance of Rousseau’s concept of General Will for
modern representative governments. 15
8. Explain the structure of the Hegelian dialectics and how it is designed to bring out the truth
using arguments and counter-arguments. 15
9. Explain why and how according to Marx a class struggle in society will eventually lead to
a revolution and the establishment of communism. 15
10. Describe J.S. Mill’s views on liberty and the limits of society’s control on the actions of
an individual. 15
***

Model Answers - Descriptive
LMS
Model Answers – Descriptive

Q1. State the basic principles of Plato's ideal state and examine his view on rule of
philosophy.
Ans. In his 'Republic' Plato has tried to portray the picture of an ideal state, which is more or
less Utopian. According to him, the citizens can be at their best only in an ideal state. While
depicting the picture of such a state, he has attempted to show as to what an ideal state ought
to be, without caring whether that was practicable or not. What Plato desired to do was to set
an ideal for all times to the states. He also wanted to lay standards for ideal state to be
followed under all circumstances and become ultimate goals and objectives which the state
should stand to achieve.
His ideal state was not bound by any customs and conventions but was a romance of free
intelligence. It was superiority of virtue which mattered much in the administration of state. If
the wise and the virtuous ruled the state there could be no doubt that an ideal state could be
achieved. Plato starts with human beings and divides Soul into three elements namely:
Reason, Spirit and Appetite.
According to him Appetite gives birth to love, Reason guides action and unity and Spirit
inspires people for battle, ambition and competition. He however, attached great importance
to Reason alone. In his ideal state there shall be functional specialization.
Salient features of Plato's Ideal State:
Plato's ideal state has the following salient features:
Rule of philosopher kings
According to Plato an ideal state must be governed by a philosopher king who should be a
passion less person and seeker of truth and wisdom. He was above all types of prejudices and
symbol of human wisdom. By his actions he commanded respect from all. He possessed high
qualities of head and heart and could not be corrupted by Concentration of power in his
hands. He combined in himself virtue and knowledge. He was bound by no laws. Such a king
alone was in a position to look after the welfare of all.
State control education
According to Plato, State should have full and final control over education. According to him
it was the only agency which could produce philosopher kings and trained the minds and
thoughts of the people in right and proper direction. Education had both social and individual
aspects in his philosophy. In society, education should promote social welfare which
individually it should bring soul closer to reality.

LMS
Specialized Soldiers
Plato fully well realised that defence of the state was most essential for all the states. He
therefore, gave this responsibility to the soldiers. He believed that these people should not be
ordinary soldiers but persons specially trained for the purpose.
Functional Specialization
Plato believed in a system of complete functional specialization. He did not like that each and
every body should go on performing functions of the type which were not suited to his
temperament and taste. He was of the firm view that everyone should perform functions
assigned to him and should not try to go beyond them. Thus, the king should rule and let
soldiers fight alone on the battlefield. But he wished that everybody should be completely
devoted to the task assigned to him and should try to attain perfection in that field.
Proper Administration of Justice
According to Plato justice was an essential and integral part of a state and it kept various
organs and individuals in close harmony with each other. Therefore he pleaded that justice
should be property administer. His conception of justice was something different from that of
modern one. It was not something to be measured in terms of courts of law. It was not a legal
conception but something functional specialization and everybody was required to remain
within his limits. Under it there was perfect harmony among various sections of society and
none was to encroach upon the rights of others.
Bringing up of Children
According to Plato, children were national possession and as such it was obligatory on the
part of the state to bring them up according to their aptitude. He also believed that ultimately
the children should be under state control and the state should not only provide them proper
education, nourishment and development but proper work as well.
Criticism of Ideal State
Platonic conception of an ideal state is to a great extent unconvincing. Some of the arguments
advanced against this conception are:
Non-development of human personality
If, at all, Platonic ideal state materializes, it is very much doubtful whether proper
development of human personality shall be possible in such a state. Plato has preached
functional specialization which implies devotion to one's duty and perfection in a particular
direction. Such perfection can only be achieved when other aspects are either absolutely
ignored or are not property developed.

LMS
Denial of Education to lower Classes
Plato has practically denied the right of high education to lower classes and has thus tried to
create class distinction. In his philosophy, he has maintained a clear distinction between
ruling and working class. Such a distinction is vitally injurious to the health of state and can
result in the division of society into hostile camps.
No Recognition to Law
It is strange that in the ideal state Plato has given no recognition to laws. He has tried to
create a state in which rulers were above laws and usually the laws had less importance than
what these should have in a well developed and civilized state.
Conclusion
We might thus conclude that there is sufficient weight in the criticism advanced against his
theory; but at the same time the most valuable contribution of his theory is that he set forth
certain targets for the succeeding generations to strive for and to achieve those targets. The
core of his philosophy still remains unchallenged. State controlled system of education is
even today being introduced in many states. His theory; in his own times and circum stances,
was well suited and practicable as well as attainable.
***
Q2. Discuss Machiavelli's concept of Religion.
Ans. Machiavelli thoroughly discusses the importance of religion in the formation and
maintenance of political authority in his famous works, The Prince and The Discourses. In his
writing on religion, he states that religion is beneficiary in the formation of political authority
and political leaders must support and endorse religion in order to maintain power. However,
Machiavelli also critiques corrupt religious institutions that become involved in politics and
in turn, cause corruption in the citizenry and divisions among the state. He stated that no
institution is firm or lasting if it rests on man's strength alone. History and reason combine to
show that the roots of all great institutions are to be found outside this world.
Sovereignties, in particular possess strength, unity, stability, only to the degree to which they
are sanctified by religion. Towards the end of the 15th century, the Popes had an involvement
in politics; an endeavor at which they were not particularly honorable. They made alliances
with the Italian city-state put their own families in political positions, and were involved in
assassination attempts.
The Popes professed 'eternal law which was a divine system that defined the nature of the
universe. Similarly, they believed in ‘natural law', which was basically eternal as it was
related to humans- their ultimate purpose in life, given to the by God. Politics were viewed

LMS
simply as a way to expand on an implement these spiritual beliefs, implying that rulers were
representations of God on earth, or were selected by a divine right.
The quote alludes to these beliefs, stating that for a government and ruler to be successful,
religion and God must bless them. Machiavelli was one of the first to depart from the idea of
politics as nothing more than an instrument in the plan of God. He was concerned with
defining power, and expressing his idea that politics should be seen as an activity in its own
right. He feels that politics should deal with facts rather than with abstractions; he is
interested in the present state of man, rather than the religious ideal.
He believes in an extreme separation of church and state, which was an opinion that did not
win him much favour among the religious. It cannot be denied that religion has an influence
over the way a government functions. Machiavelli examines these various ideas concerning
the role of religion and principalities in his book, The Prince. He believes that it is good to
encourage morality and religious principles among the people. He thinks that these are
necessary factors for keeping the people productive and obedient.
He even stated that the religiously ruled Ecclesiastical principalities are desired, for the laws
of religion already govern their people, and are therefore less subject to mutiny or civil
disobedience. However, while Machiavelli is in favour of religion on part of the people, it
seems he views it more as a mere tool than as a true institution of faith. He looks upon
religion as a tool that could be utilized to keep the public from becoming unruly, since
religion tends to constantly strike the fear of damnation into its followers.
Supporting the idea of Machiavelli's callous view of religion is the fact that he feels the ruler
himself has no obligation to live by the same religious ethics as do his people. The ruler is
above such things as religion, morality, and even good and evil. Machiavelli promotes such
ligiously unsanctioned methods as the use of cruelty, deceit or even murder, as long as they
are used intelligently and secretly enough to have results beneficial to the user.
According to him, the end justifies the means; if a prince can gain power and maintain his
state to the fullest, he will always be praised and rewarded, and the methods used to gain his
power, however dubious they may be, become null and void. In fact, Machiavelli writes, it is
not necessary for a prince to have all the above mentioned [ethical] qualities in fact, but it is
indeed necessary to appear to have them.
Nay, dare I say this, that by having them and always observing them, they are harmful; and
by appearing to have them, they are useful as it is to appear merciful; faithful, humane, and
religious? With this quote, Machiavelli expresses his opinion that it is not only acceptable for
a ruler to demonstrate immoral tactics to gain power, once he is in power, moral attributes
such as ethics, humanity and even religion are not only unnecessary, but harmful.

LMS
Machiavelli believes that though religion can indeed serve to unify a prince and his people, in
opposition it can also nullify some of the prince's power, for many have held and hold the
opinion that worldly things are so governed by fortune and by God, that men cannot correct
them with their prudence, indeed that they have no remedy at all; and on account of this they
might judge that one need not sweat much over things but let oneself be governed by chance.
In other words, at times people's extreme faith in God and an uncontrollable fate leads to a
loss of personal ambition, and subsequently to a loss of free will. Machiavelli believes that
the risk of this religious downfall is far too great, and therefore he proposes that religion and
politics should be held as completely separate entities. Religion should be held in the hand of
God, whereas politics should be held in the hands of men. He believes that politics could be
completely separated from all other behaviors, and looked upon as self sufficient.
However it may seem, this ‘separation of powers' is not done with the intention to help
preserve religious integrity by freeing it from the corruption of politics. Rather Machiavelli
wishes nothing more for the prince than to acquire power and maintain his principalities.
Machiavelli states that two fundamentals needed for a prince to be efficient are virtu and
fortuna, the latter referring to unpredictable fortune, while the former refers to the prince's
cunning and abilities.
Religious ideals seem to play no part in his philosophies, unlike most Greek, Roman and
Hebrew thinkers of the time. They saw no real distinction between religion and politics, as
kings were believed to be the human embodiment of God. Under Machiavelli's ideal rule, the
purpose of government would no longer be to help shape the souls of its citizens, nor would it
be to provide a paradigm of morality.
Rather, the purpose of government would be a state where the people could exercise their
basic requirements for happiness; these being refuge, self-protection, and general well-being.
This goes to the idea of preserving free will, and the thought that religion tends to smother
such independent thought and self-determination. Machiavelli states one sees by experience
in our times that the princes who have done great things are those who take little account of
faith and have known how to get around men's brains with their astuteness.
Religion's basic function is to present the people with the notion that if they behave properly,
they might find salvation. Because of this, religion can be a very controlling entity, one that a
clever ruler could manipulate to his advantage. This is precisely why Machiavelli views faith
as a device used to exploit and control his people. He presents the notion that to a ruler,
religion is much more useful as a municipal tool, rather than a moral one.
In The Prince, Machiavelli also writes that above anyone else, a prince should not let himself
be governed by morality. He writes, a prudent lord, therefore, cannot observe faith, nor
should he, when such observance turns against him, and the causes that made him promises

LMS
have been eliminated. He believes that the last thing a nation would want or need would be to
have a state ruled by priests, comparable to the one Moses concocted.
In fact, Machiavelli believes it necessary that a prince not even aid religious leaders.
Machiavelli's main problems with the church rose out of its lack of accountability to the
people it governed. He believed that the problems of the Church were due to the kind of
people it bred; perverse and lusting for power. He does not mind the church being great as
long as it does not interfering with the running of the political machinery.
In fact, from his point of view, the church lost its pristine glory mainly because it began
interfering in temporal and political matters. The double standards of the church were there
for him to see. The principles of ethics and morality that the church advocated were not
followed by the members of the church itself.
The very same morality that subjugated the people liberated the members of the clergy, a
situation not acceptable to Machiavelli. Therefore he wanted to create a new morality that
was consistent with the spirit of humanism and that which would help men attain their true
potential. It is as a part of this new morality that Machiavelli asked for the separation of the
spiritual from the temporal.
Machiavelli says, our religion has tended to glorify humble and contemplative men rather
than the men of action. Moreover, it has claimed that the highest good lies in humility,
humbleness and contempt of human beings. This point becomes clearer when his views on
Roman religion are seen in the Discourses. He says, The Roman religion claimed that it lay in
greatness of spirit, physical strength, and in all those things tending to make men brave.
Machiavelli goes on to state, if our religion demands courage of a man, it demands it so that
he may be able to suffer rather than do anything bold. Machiavelli's new morality therefore is
a reversion to the old. In that he sees a possibility of men being of action and satisfying his
desire for a unified Italy which was clearly consistent with the early burgeoning capitalism
and wanting to keep foreigners from trade in the various principalities of Italy.
***

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WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

WESTERN POLITICLA THOUGHT LOYOLA COLLEGE, WILLIAMNAGAR Page 1

1. Greek Political Thought:

Plato – Law, Justice & Communism

Aristotle – Slavery, State on Revolution

2. Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics

3. Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, State of nature, Social Contract

4. J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of Women

5. Hegel: Dialectics, State, Freedom

6. Marx: Historical Materialism, State and Class Struggle

WESTERN POLITICLA THOUGHT LOYOLA COLLEGE, WILLIAMNAGAR Page 2

1. Greek Political Thought: 7

1.1.1. Early Life

1.1.2. Plato’s concept of Law

1.1.3. Plato’s concept of Justice

1.1.4. Plato’s concept of communism

1.1.5. Forms of Communism

1.2.1. Early Life

1.2.2. Aristotle’s view on Slavery

1.2.3. Aristotle’s view of State on Revolution

1.2.4. Methods to prevent Revolutions

1.2.6. Review Questions

1.2.7. Further Readings

2. Machiavelli: Human nature, State craft, Religion and Politics 27

2.1. Niccolo Machiavelli

2.2. Early Life

2.3. Important Works

2.4. Machiavelli’s view of Human nature

WESTERN POLITICLA THOUGHT LOYOLA COLLEGE, WILLIAMNAGAR Page 3

2.6. Machiavelli’s view on State craft

2.7. Machiavelli’s view on Religion and Politics

2.9. Review Questions

2.10. Further Readings

3. Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, State of nature, Social Contract 44

3.1. Thomas Hobbes (5th April 1588 – 4th December 1679)

3.1.1. Early life and Education

3.1.2. Ethics and Human Nature

3.1.3. The State of nature

3.1.4. The Laws of Nature and the Social Contract

3.1.5. Why should we obey the Sovereign?

3.2. John Locke (29th August 1632 – 28th October 1704)

3.2.1. Human nature

3.2.2. The State of nature

3.2.3. Natural rights and Property

3.2.4. Causes of Contract

3.2.5. The Social Contract

3.2.6. Two Contracts

3.3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28th June 1712 – 2nd July 1778)

3.3.1. Early Life

WESTERN POLITICLA THOUGHT LOYOLA COLLEGE, WILLIAMNAGAR Page 4

3.3.3. The State of Nature

3.3.4. The Social Contract

3.3.5. Rousseau’s General Will

3.3.7. Review Questions

3.3.8. Further Readings

4. J.S. Mill: Liberty, Representative Government, Position of Women 87

4.1.1. Early life and career

4.1.2. Mill’s View on liberty

4.1.3. Mill’s concept of Representative government