QUESTION #5

POL S 302 MIDTERM

Question 5: Write an essay about the place of happiness in Kant’s and Bentham’s moral and political theories. For each thinker focus on the standard that an individual who is facing a moral choice would use and the standard with which one can assess a political system.

Bentham

• ·         Bentham uses utility calculus to determine what is best for society.
• ·         In Bentham’s utility calculus, happiness is achieved when the greatest good for the greatest number of people is obtained. Bentham’s moral and political theories stems from his utility calculus.
• ·         Does not believe in universal standard.
• ·         Analytic Reconstitutive Method. Pick an experience and analyze it part by part; do what gives you pleasure.
• ·         All knowledge comes from experience
• ·         The role of government is to make its members happy.
• ·         Happiness is the standard of morality.

Kant

• ·         Similar to Rousseau; individual moral choice vs. categorical imperative
• ·         A system of law is important in a state. The state determines what is good for its people because it would benefit them.
• ·         The individual man would need to set aside himself and focus on the societal man.
• ·         Talk about the original contract and life under society and law.
• ·         Under the original contract is a minimal standard
• ·         Unlike the utility calculus, legislators should not make laws for themselves, but think of laws that will benefit society eve if it makes some people angry.

QUESTION #3

POL S 302 MIDTERM

Question 3

Mary Wollstonecraft on education

• ·         Women’s education is rooted in manners and is superficial. Women were not educated but were trained to become respectful, mannered and beautiful wives.
• ·         Women should be given equal opportunities to education like men
• ·         Compared women to soldiers; both are trained to do little specific things. They are taught little virtue
• ·         Men and women are not different; the reason they are different is because men are given the right type of education that allows them to evolve but women are not.
• ·         Both men and women are improvable and therefore both should be given the same type of education that will improve them.
• ·         Individual selves activates individual reason. This is why women needs education. So that they can improve their reasoning.
• ·         Wollstonecraft suggests that women are have immortal souls that is worthy of being developed.

Schiller on education

• ·         Aesthetic education can produce an increased level of awareness to the world and can produce and increased intensity in determining the activity of intellect.
• ·         Talks about mechanical vs. fine art
• ·         Prefers the fine artist because it destroys but still knows the importance of the material
• ·         Politics has taken away man’s ability to become a fine artist. Instead of man shaping himself, the political body created laws that will benefit the state rather than the man himself.
• ·         The physical man has been created by the state. Schiller does not want politics to destroy individuality.
• ·         His utopia is one like the ancient Greek society, where men were not assigned specific tasks. Education should be well-rounded.
• ·         The artist cannot be a child of his time or he will lose his individuality.
• ·         An educated fine artist is good at playing with the senses.

QUESTION #2

POL S 302 MIDTERM

Question 2

Burke on the Rights of Man

• ·         Government is a contrivance for human rights
• ·         Burke believes that the Declaration of the Rights of Man can easily be abused and cause tyranny.
• ·         Burke doesn’t believe that universal laws should exist because the political sphere is ever- changing and it wouldn’t be practical to rule based on ideas.
• ·         The only way to preserve the natural rights of man is to end political associations.
• ·         Politics is not just about ideas but also feelings.
• ·         Page 54: We live in a concrete society and it would be useless to use abstract light in a concrete world.
• ·         Argues that hereditary English monarchy is key.

Wollstonecraft on the Rights of Man

• ·         In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft argues that genuine freedom comes from equality of the sexes and claims that intellect and reason are superior to emotion or passion.
• ·         She condemns Burke’s ideas.
• ·         The rights of man originates from God
• ·         Her work focuses on sexual equality; there are women who fought in the revolution in France and they should also receive rights
• ·         Hereditary property hinders honors.
• ·         Property in England is more important than liberty
• ·         “Life of a deer more sacred than the life of a man” punishment for stealing is harsh. The government of England is more concerned about property rights than other things.
• ·         The poor serves to protect the rights of the king

QUESTION #1

POL S 302 MIDTERM

Question 1

• ·         “But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold the generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.”
• ·         Chivalry = social order founded on mutual respect and obedience to one's duty as defined by gender and social rank
• ·         Burke argues that those serving the royalty show genuine chivalry that is not motivated by individual motive to profit but by a generous loyalty that finds meaning and satisfaction in fulfilling his role in the larger social order.
• ·         Chivalry has been replaced by specialized workers such as lawyers, economists, mathematicians, etc. who serve merely to gain respect in their professions than to serve society.
• ·         Chivalry represented France at the beginning of the Revolution. Although there were flaws, the system was working to an extent. Once people became sophists, they disregarded the foundation of society.
• ·         The attack of the Bastille is symbolic of the decline of chivalry. People no longer respected authority; they lost loyalty to anyone but themselves. This is dangerous because instead of being united and having a common identity, France was demolished into pieces.
• ·         Pge 61 – 62, description of the king & queen being led by the crowd to Versailles
• ·         Page 67 talks about the code of chivalry better then the idea of the French Enlightenment.