Justification of state guiding notes PDF

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The justification of the state and its authority - here we deal with the fundamental question: what justifies the state's existence, power and authority at all? - we often take for granted the existence of the state that we rarely question what states can do, why they are necessary, even when they control most of what we do or not do, and how we should live our lives (taxes, prices, laws, policies, etc) Question 1: Why do we need the state at all. - 1. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) offered a simple reason for why the state should exist – without it life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short’. Hobbes took a dim view of human nature, seeing mankind as greedy, violent, competitive and vainglorious. We need a state to provide a stable structure to prevent a war of all against all. On this view, the state is justified because of the benefits we gain from its existence. - 2. For Jeremy Bentham, though not sharing Hobbes's profound pessimism about human nature, agreed that the state is justified on the grounds of its usefulness. In his utilitarian view, we should always try and maximise happiness and diminish suffering. This goal can be achieved more efficiently if there is a state than if there is anarchy. - 3. Plato - The state has function is there for harmoney - just like a human consists of the body and the soul, a good person is one who lives a harmonous life of the soul (the appetites (or desires), the spirited part (which includes the emotions), and reason. The healthy individual is one in whom these three parts play their appropriate role and work together in harmony. However, this concordance occurs only when the desires and the spirited part are governed by reason.) - Since the state is an individual writ large, there were three kinds of people in society: (1) labourers or general citizenry - those who are ruled by their appetites, (2) soldiers or warriors - those who are ruled by their passions and motivated by ambition, loyalty, honor, and courage, and (3) philosopher kings or rulers - those who are fully governed by reason.- Plato believed that, in the same way that harmony is realized in a healthy individual, justice or a healthy society is realized in a society when each group plays its appropriate role and when the first two classes are ruled by the intellectual elite. -But even if we may agree that we need a state, but how much authority and power need it have? Is the role of the state minimal – to stop us descending into violent anarchy, as Hobbes suggested – or does it have a wider role, acting in any area of life where its intervention produces a social benefit, as Bentham suggests? Question 2: How is any particular government justified in exercising power over its citizens? - 1. Divine Right to Rule - The most ancient view is the divine right theory (divine right to rule), which states that the king, queen, pharaoh, emperor, or whoever received his or her authority to rule from God or the gods.. - no one in the society had the power to question whether the ruler. This was often the justification of absolute monarchy - 2. Theoretical anarchism agrees with the basic premise that government has no legitimate authority, but holds that even though the exercise of governmental power is theoretically unjustified, it may be necessary, as a matter of practical necessity. We therefore should tolerate its existence. - it is unjustified becauase becuase persons have autonomy freedom of choice and taking responsibility for one's actions. - there is therefore a conflict between the authority of the state and the right to autonomy - 3. Social Contract Theory. the idea that state authority is established by a social contract. Social contact theories appear in various forms in the history of political philosophy, but most famously in Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762). Contrary to Hobbes, Rousseau thought that life in the state of nature was something of a lost Eden, where people enjoyed complete freedom and lived together in harmony. The noble savage lived well. But humanity has become more developed and more complex, and there is now no turning back to a time of lost innocence. In order for people to flourish now, we have to trade in some of our freedom in return for the stability and security offered by the state. Where once each individual was sovereign over herself, now individuals pool sovereignty, handing it over the ‘general will’. Our deal is that we cede personal sovereignty to the state on condition that everyone else does, to eliminate the need for conflict and to guarantee that we all are all on an equal footing. - Contract theory is thus both an explanation of the origin and purpose of the state and a defense of its authority.

- The Social Contract Theory of John Locke - Contrary to Hobbes, Locke believed that there are two states in human societies, the state of nature and the state of war. In a state of nature (before formation of formal governing institutions), human beings would be governed by natural laws or moral laws and that human beings will live harmiously. It is only in a state of war that there would be chaos. Locke believed that the conduct of individuals and society was governed by a universal, objective, moral law, not a law based on human conventions. Locke believed that this moral law was instituted by God. Furthermore, he argued that this natural law guaranteed us basic, natural, inherent rights by virtue of the fact that we are human. - A right is a justified claim to something, usually implying that other people have certain duties with respect to the possessor of the right. - Among these natural, moral rights are the preservation of our life, health, liberty, and possessions. - If we have natural,indefeasible, inalienable rights, then the government can never justifiably violate these rights. If it does so, then it is no longer a legitimate government. - Locke’s social contract theory has to be understood with his theory of natural rights as its background. We create the government with the social contract, but we do not surrender our rights to the government, nor does it create our rights. - Instead, we bring the government into being in order to protect our natural rights. - This makes him willing to quit this condition which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers; and it is not without reason that he seeks out and is willing to join in society with others . . . for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which i call by the general name—property. - If, as Locke claims, the state of nature is one of complete freedom, governed by reason, goodwill, and mutual assistance, why bother with government at all? Locke provides three reasons why people would want to contract together to form a government. People need: (1) an established and unbiased interpretation of the natural moral law embedded in nature (a clear interpretation of the unwritten moral law), (2) an impartial judge to apply the established law to settle disputes and conflicts of interest (unbiased judges to resolve disputes about the moral law), and (3) a power to support the rights of those who are victims of injustice and to enforce the law (power capable of enforcing justice when someone violates the moral law). - For Locke, life without government is an “ill condition” and full of “inconveniences.” If government is a convenience, not a necessity, then we can dictate the terms of the bargain. Instead of surrendering our rights and power to the government as Hobbes proposed, we delegate it for the mutual preservation of our lives, property, and liberties. The government is our creation; therefore, it is our servant, not an absolute power over us. As Locke puts it, the actions of the government are “to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.”3 In this theory are the foundations of what has come to be called “classical liberalism,” the notion that the government should have only as much power as is necessary to do for us what we cannot (or cannot conveniently and effi ciently) do for ourselves. - An important consequence of the fact that it is wrong for government to violate people’s rights is that people have the right to resist and rebel against government authority. Advantages of the social contract theory - The social contract is, of course, a fiction in that no-one literally signs over their sovereignty. The contract is tacit (Implied by or inferred from actions or statements) rather than explicit. But that is not to say the deal is not real. If the state abuses its power, it breaches the contract, and individuals have the right to fight against it. If an individual breaks their contract by acting outside of the law, the state has the right to withhold its privileges from her. -The theory also has the advantage of allowing for varieties of political structure. Just as long as the contract is accepted by both sides, any form of government will do, from democracy to monarchy. This means the theory does not privilege a particular form of government preferred by Western nations. problems of the social contract theory - The problem with social contract theories is that they are based on a metaphor that can break down. For example, what if I want to cancel my contract? I just don't seem to be able to do this. One cannot opt out of society. So if the state does have power by means of a contract, it seems to be a contract I have no choice but to sign. But a contract signed without free consent is not a contract at all. - we don't choose which state we are born in Similar thoughts led Hume to reject contract theories. He thought that the idea that consent, implicit or

explicit, lies behind the legitimacy of the state was absurd. Someone born in a country, only able to speak its language and without riches, for example, has no choice but to live there. The idea that a person consents to live under the rule of that nation by their tacitly agreeing to its terms is a myth. Like Hobbes, Hume thought the legitimacy of the state boiled down to the fact that we cannot live without it. limits of the state 1. unjust laws - Laws are just and must be obeyed, then, only when (1) they serve the common good of the whole community, (2) they do not exceed the authority of the lawmaker, (3) they do not unjustly discriminate against some and unfairly advantage others, and (4) they do not require citizens to violate their religious beliefs. If a law fails on any of these counts, it is no law at all and so citizens have no obligation to obey it. - If rules are true laws only when they are moral and just, then people have no obligation to obey a rule that is unjust or immoral. 2. freedom - In essence, Mill argues that society in general, and government in particular, must leave the individual free to live his life as he chooses so long as he is harming no one. This concern for freedom grew out of Mill’s fear of what he called the “tyranny of the majority,” the tendency of government—and society in general—to persecute and suppress any forms of life or ways of thinking that it dislikes, and to force individuals to conform to what the majority wants: - Mill proposed a fundamental principle that is now sometimes called the “harm principle,” which imposes a significant limit on the power of government. Mill’s principle is that unless an individual’s actions will harm others, he must be left free to do what he wants in three ways: free to think and say what he wants, free to live as he wants, and free to associate with others as he wants. 3. Human rights - many people have felt that the law should also be judged by the respect that it shows for human rights. All people, they believe, have certain basic rights, and the law should show respect for such rights. In fact, some people have held that when a law fails to respect human rights, the law is evil and need not be obeyed. - a right as a justified entitlement or claim on others...