He says that men are “ungrateful, fickle, deceptive and deceiving, avoiders of danger, and eager to gain. As long as you serve their interests, they are devoted to you” . According to Machiavelli’s theory on human nature, it is mans pure self-interest that allows them to be easily controlled, by coercing them through manipulative and sometime violent means. He states that attempting to rule over people by honourable means would only lead to a ruler’s downfall, as an honourable ruler is always surrounded by “unscrupulous men” . Machiavelli states that “a
Natural law is one of the most major philosophical and political influences on the Declaration of Independence. Many people interpret the natural law in extremely different ways. Thomas Hobbes believed man cannot survive in a “natural state” without rule or government. He believed it was the government’s job to tightly enforce the people or the people would turn to chaos. Locke believed the power of the government came from the people and if the people are not happy with government actions then they have every right to overthrow the government.
Each country, especially the United States, had an almost isolationistic view of their role in the world. Today, however, we face the challenge of enemies who do not think rationally and will die for what they think is the greater good, so the view of seclusion is not longer valid. The suicidal attitude of these new adversaries makes these types of people’s actions very hard to predict and track which leads to a danger that is unpredictable and around which we cannot devise a defensive plan. Another idea is that the civilized world believes that the economically developed countries take care of the less developed countries. In an article written by James G. Pradke called “Idealism vs. Realism: a Modern Approach to Capitalism Vs. Socialism,” dated April 16, 2010, he quoted Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (2010) which “claims that realism dismisses idealization and presents a theory which focuses on concern for fact or reality while rejecting
Although democratic practices were on the way in the capitalist countries, he asserted that democratic politics possessed no advancement. Their destinations are totally different. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience was the first great declaration of the right and duty to commit civil disobedience, which intended to set the demands of conscience above the demands of the law and the ruling authorities, to keep human’s moral obligation which was to resist evil, to make the democracy and justice come true. Nietzsche, on the other side, aimed to rebuild the deposed hierarchy system of the society, to realize elite politics that only a small group of people manage the society. From this perspective, their reasons for nonviolence are also divergent for their
Correspondingly, he implies that the people who continue to practice poverty only do so in an obsession to uphold subordinate religious morals. With this in mind, Undershaft takes it upon himself to maintain his wealth as a justifiable attempt to prevent poverty from casting a grim shadow upon society. His cause is achieved through means not only by the manipulation of the working class, but also through exploiting man’s inherent need to war over morality and religion. Undershaft’s complete faith in the creation and power of weaponry only proves the fallacy in believing that God
Thoreau wrote the Essay on Civil Disobedience, in which he addressed the question, “when do larger moral imperatives justify violating a law supported by the majority”. His response was that when a law “… is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law’’. This follows from basic English Common Law, in which you can do something as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else. Thoreau’s philosophy is that you disobey a command (law) when it is hurting someone else. Another area of his thinking is that government is symbolic of a ‘machine’, and man should commit non-violent disobedience to ‘gain access to the machine’.
Men seek to enslave, to control and to provide for his own existence. Men create their moral attitude by renouncing the being side of his humanity and embrace his own existence. This however, creates a difficult situation between man and nature. What can man do to create a balance of both? Beauvoir writes “his life is a difficult enterprise whose success is never assured”.
Philosophical debate draws concern over who may be right or wrong. Though truly people should not be concerned with the right and wrong but rather the contribution that the thoughts that the debate is developing. Two philosophers who contributed to the basic development of thoughts for philosophy were Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Both contributed to three basic ideas of philosophy: state of nature, government and social contract. Hobbes has a negative view upon the state of nature, believing that life for people was barbaric.
For every action that a person makes, there is an influence or motivation, for example his own nature and the way he makes decisions, or his upbringing, and the way he has been brought up to think. People who act on their own would include leaders, hermits and those in authoritative positions. Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher, believed that man is selfish and evil and that society is needed to tame them. The values of a larger society would then include traits such as being civilized and would ideally restrain man to act in that way. However, individual behavior, or the actions of a typical person will tend to be influenced by his own values instead of those of his community, which have a weaker hold on him.
War is a state of conflict that two forces find themselves in – a competition with selfish endeavors. The definition of the “original condition of mankind” that Hobbes explains is “that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consistent not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.” (Hobbes Ch. XII) Men are born equal and they have the right to take as much as they please, in order to keep their original condition. He proposes to solve the problem of war by creating laws, because of their need of survival above all.