and
Philosophy of Law
Political Philosophy is the Philosophy of the State.
The Problem of Justice is the key issue of Social Philosophy.
The problem is usually seen as having to do with fairness and desert
in meeting the claims of citizens and in the distribution of goods and services.
Political and Social Philosophy ask questions about the state's legitimate authority over its members and about social values such as justice. Types of questions are: Can the idea of government be rationally justified, or must all governments be irrational? Do humans have any political duties or social obligations? Under what conditions? Are there such things as natural social rights? Can such rights be justifiably overridden as a form of punishment?
Bibliography
One Person, No Vote:
How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
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Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Assault on Democracy
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American Injustice in the
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Plato's Republic
A Diallage in 16 Chapters
by Alain Badiou
Translated by Susan Spitzer and
Introduction by Kenneyh Reinhard, 2012
Badiou's Sublime Translation of the Republic
CONTENTS
Prologue: The Conversation in the Villa on the Harbor (327a-336b)
1. Reducing the Sophist to Silence (336b-357a)
2. The young People's Pressing Questions (357a-368d)
3. The Origins of Society and the State (368d-376c)
4. The Disciplines of the Mind: Literature and Music (376c-403c)
5. The Disciplines of the Body: Nutrition, Medicine,
and Physical Education (403c-412c)
6. Objective Justice (412c-434d)
7. Subjective Justice (434d-449a)
8. Women and Families (449a-471c)
9. What is a Philosopher? (471c-484b)
10. Philosophy and Politics (484b-502c)
11. What is an Idea? (502c-521c)
12. From Mathematics to the Dialectic (521c-541b)
13. Critique of the Four Pre-Communist Systems of Government I:
Timocracy and Oligarchy (541b-555b)
14. Critique of the Four Pre-Communist Systems of Government II:
Democracy and Tyranny (555b-573b)
15. Justice and Happiness (573-592b)
16. Poetry and Thought (592b-608b)
Epilogue: The Mobile Eternity of Subjects (608b-621d)
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Translated with Introduction and Notes
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Translated, with Notes, An Interpretive Essay,
and a New Introduction
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or
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Ecclesiastical and Civil
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edited, translated, and introduced
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and End of Civil Government
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Hegel's Philosophy of Right
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Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
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The Communist Manifesto
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edited by Lewis S. Feuer, 1959
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The Marxist Teaching on the State
and the Task of the Proletariat in the Revolution
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The Public and its Problems
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Individualism Old and New
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Liberalism and Social Action
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Ideology and Utopia
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or
Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism
by R. G. Collingwood
Revised Edition with an Introduction and additional material
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The Politics of Freedom
Our purposes and perils on the tightrope of American Liberalism
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Edited by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, 1963/1972
An Essay on Liberation
by Herbert Marcuse, 1969
Counter-Revolution and Revolt
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The Handbook for the Black Revolution
that is Changing the Shape of the World
by Frantz Fanon, 1963
Patterns of Anarchy:
A Collection of Writings on the Anarchist Tradition
edited by Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry, 1966
The Poverty of Liberalism
by Robert Paul Wolff, 1968
A Critique of Pure Tolerance
by Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr.,
and Herbert Marcuse, 1969
In Defense of Anarchism
by Robert Paul Wolff, 1970
The Open Society and its Enemies
by Karl R. Popper,
The Poverty of Historicism
by Karl R. Popper, 1964
A Theory of Justice
by John B. Rawls, 1971
Political Liberalism
by John Rawls, 1993
Nations and Men:
International Politics Today
by Ivo D. Duchacek, 1966
Recent American Foreign Policy:
Conflicting Interpretations
by Lawrence S. Kaplan, 1968
The Worldly Philosophers
by Robert L. Heilbroner, 1972
Anarchy, State and Utopia
by Robert Nozick, 1974
Should Trees Have Standing?
Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects
by Christopher D. Stone, 1974
Taking Rights Seriously
by Ronald Dworkin, 1976
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The Political Essays of Paul Goodman
edited by Taylor Stoehr, 1979
The Emergence of Dialectical Theory
Philosophy and Political Inquiry
by Scott Warran, 1984
Privacy in a Public Society:
Human Rights in Conflict
by Richard F. Hixson, 1987
Religious Convictions and Political Choice
by Kent Greenawalt, 1988
The Supreme Court on Church and State
by Robert S. Alley, 1988
Love and Power:
The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics
by Michael J. Perry, 1991
The Broken Covenant:
American Civil Religion in Time of Trial
by Robert N. Bellah, 1992
The Right to Privacy
by Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy, 1995
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Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy
by Russell Jacoby, 1999
A People's History of the Supreme Court
by Peter Irons, 1999
Leo Strauss:
An Intellectual Biography
by Daniel Tanguay, 2003/07
America's Constitution:
A Biography
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The Meaning of Marxism
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Capitalism
by Paul Bowles, 2007
VIOLENCE
by Slavoj Zizek, 2008
The Race Beat:
The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
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How Washington Made the Rich Richer
and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
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The Life of an Idea
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ON TYRANNY
Twenty Lessons from the
Twentieth Century
by Timothy Snyder, 2017
The Road to Unfreedom
Russia - Europe - America
by Timothy Snyder, 2018
Philosophy of Law
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law
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Cases and Materials
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Philosophy of Law
Eighth edition
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Textbooks
A Political Philosophy:
An Introduction
by William T. Blackstone, 1973
Why They Call It Politics:
A Guide to America's Government
by Robert Sherrill, 1974
Contemporary Political Philosophers
Edited by Anthony de Crespigny and Kenneth Minogue, 1975
Philosophy, Science, and Political Inquiry
by John G. Gunnell, 1975
Democracy for the Few
by Michael Parenti, 1977/2001
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A Radical Approach
by Edward S. Greenberg, 1977
Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society
by Steven M. DeLue, 2002
Nagasaki:
Life After Nuclear War
by Susan Southhard,
Terror-ism Project
Ethics for Modern Life
Part III, CHAPTER 13 WAR AND TERRORISM*
Burleigh T .Wilkins, Can Terrorism Be Justified?*
A. R. Louch, Terrorism Is Immoral*
by Raziel Abelson and Marie-Louise Friquegnon, sixth edition, 2003.
B. T. Wilkins and Alfred Louch take opposing stands on the justifiability of terrorism.
Task and Scope:
Following an introductory paragraph, identify the position taken by each author, then clearly state in your own words what you find to be the most important points made by each.
Carefully and logically explain your view. If you feel you must quote an author's words, do so very sparingly and (of course) use quotation marks.
Terrorism is an emotionally laden term. Terrorism Boo or Terrorism yea is a good summary, and prima facie analysis of the presentations of both Wilkins and Louch.
Wilkins, in my view presents the more cogent arguments.
The Answer: (Terrorism' good or bad?) is it depends on the context, who (Which society) is speaking the word, and on the time and place of the act called Terrorism. President (General) George Washington was a terrorist to the Brits because he commanded a band of revolutionaries that would hide behind trees and purposely target British "officers" from their snipers nests. The colonist would not stride out into the field and fight fairly. Thus, America, in 1776, was born as a "terrorist" state.
Additionally, the Bombing of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki was a morally sanctioned terrorist act, because it had a good Utilitarian final result: the bombing was so dramatic a demonstration of power than it speeded the end of WW2 and saved many thousands of American and Japanese live on a net basis. Hence, terrorism in this case was a good thing on balance.
I assume in these remarks that the word terrorism is a close synonym to the word war. If terrorism can be demonstrated to be immoral, than war too, is equally immoral.
There is no moral high ground in this debate. If the world is a mirror and “what comes around goes around”. There is not much difference in the terms "all-out-war" and “terrorism”.
As a national act of self-defense Terrorism might be a good thing because it help the victims realize and experientially "know" what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the conduct they, themselves have been engaging in; experiencing what it feels like to get a good taste of your own medicine. Since, if you live by the sword you can well expect to die by the sword.
Terrorism too can be seen as an exercise of fighting fire with fire and justified, if you consider your society as the moral equal (I suspect), and not the moral superior of the society with which you are conducting a violent dispute. So all acts are justified, if you can point to the moral equivalent of the act, conducted by the other side.
Additionally, I speculate that countries like Japan in the future, will be impacted to a far lesser degree by the problem of terrorism, with a different national attitudes toward national armament and violence, and a less active military industrial complex, these more peaceful societies may receive more benign treatment on the international arena, compared to the aggressively warring society.
In democracy as a form of government, a population has a tendency to vote for and get the government they deserve. A society may eventually reap about what it sows in the long term if justice is an important value in the Universe.
The American Civil war can be seen by some reasonable people as a collective purging of collective guilt in the long path of evolution toward a more moral collective society.
Wilkins argues that “some acts of terrorism, understood by him as the infliction of harm against innocent persons for political or social goals, are justified if (1). the goals are morally acceptable, (2). there is no likely nonviolent alternative for achieving them, and (3). the victims, even if personally innocent, are in some reasonable sense collectively guilty. He gives as an example of justifiable terrorism any acts of sabotage or indiscriminate assault against the Nazis by their potential victims”.
Louch denounces all terrorism as abominable. Unlike Wilkins, he does not regard acts of violence against tyrannies like the Nazi regime as terrorist, because their political goals are fairly clear and morally justifiable; this implies that for him, terrorism is the use of indiscriminate violence for vague, unjustifiable, and probably unrealizable goals. Terrorists, he claims, are arrogant fanatics, “unable to distinguish between the repressiveness of totalitarian regimes… and democracies,” so that “the targets of these groups are neither evil enough nor powerful enough to warrant such extreme measures.”
Terrorism noun: the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
Army technology glossary:
Terrorism
Terrorism is the threat or actual use of violence and force by a terrorist organization or individual terrorist against the population or property of a nation to influence the controlling power of that nation for religious, political or ideological reasons. See terrorist and terrorist organization below:
Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence, and Empire
by Reese Erlich, Noam Chomsky, and Robert Baer, 2010
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |