Their basic altitudes towards the democracy and nonviolence conflict with each other. King’s own account of his philosophy of nonviolence indicated the extent to which he was influenced by Thoreau’s theoretical framework for thinking about civil disobedience and political obligation. Thoreau has confidence in democracy and the belief of unifying individuals of the society to realize it. However, Nietzsche overtly objected to democratic politics, with thinking that love, freedom and democracy are all the results of recognizing the right. Although democratic practices were on the way in the capitalist countries, he asserted that democratic politics possessed no advancement.
This postulate of God has origin in one’s own reason which would necessarily mean that submitting to will of God is submitting to one’s own reason. The need of God arises because the relationship between moral law and happiness is not guaranteed in this world. So here God comes to the rescue and thus necessitates the compatibility of virtue and realization of highest good. The postulate of immortality is very much interwoven with the postulate of God. Taking into account the sensuous nature of human beings, Kant states that it is very difficult for a man to be righteous without hope.
Paine used Common Sense as a great tool to let the commoners and less educated to gain some insight on the role and purpose of government. Firstly, Paine makes a distinction between government and society. Paine states: “Society is everything constructive and good that people join together to accomplish. Government, on the other hand, is an institution whose sole purpose is to protect us from our own vices. Government has its origins in the evil of man and is therefore a necessary evil at best.” He goes on to say that “government's sole purpose is to protect life, liberty and property, and that a government should be judged solely on the basis of the extent to which it accomplishes this goal.” Basically, Paine is stating to the common people that they have the opportunity to form their own representation of government and do it in a way that truly represents their wants and needs.
Fromm’s literary article mainly analyzes the concepts of obedience and disobedience as well as their effects on humanity. He also argues that human evolution would come to an end without achieving freedoms through the acts of disobedience. In the first paragraph of this article, Fromm states that disobedience requires the courage to be alone against authority and the courage to bring freedom; it is what started the
Explain the theory of duty in Kantian Ethics (25 marks) Kantian ethics is an absolutist theory as Kant claimed what is morally ‘good’ is constant and unchanging. Because of this, it can be a universal concept applied in different societies and cultures with the idea that an action should only be performed for duty’s sake. His approach was deontological because the idea of right or wrong was based on the action rather than the consequence, he believed that this was the only rational basis for morality and could be proven objectively, independent from emotion and opinion. As humans we have the innate ability to reason, something which we gained prior to any sensory experience in this world. This is an idea which is absolute and according to Kant, the way we decide the morality of an action.
Greek and Roman Cultural Analysis Paper Cynthia Casillas HUM/100 October 11, 2011 Joseph Magil Greek and Roman Cultural Analysis Paper Perhaps the most curious aspect of Plato’s work was his belief that the individual is made up of three conflicting elements: passion, intellect, and will. He taught that the intellect must be in control and passion must be managed by will. (Fiero, 2011). In ancient Greece and Rome, political theory and practice were anti-individualistic; for they considered and made the State the supreme good, an end in itself, to which the individual was a mere means. Aristotle resolved the relationship between the individual and the state as follows: [The] state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part.
Richard Rorty has also made profound leaps and bounds into the vastness of nothing being new. He picks up where Nietzsche leaves off and perpetuates the extinction of truth as making it relative to oneself within pragmatic notions found in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Both men can see that the ends are more important than the means as long as human life is triumphant just as long as “it escapes from the inherited descriptions of the contingencies of its existence and finds new descriptions. This is the difference between thinking of redemptions as making contact with something larger and more enduring than oneself and redemption as Nietzsche describes it: ‘recreating all “it was” into a “thus I willed it’” (Rorty, 29). In “The Antichrist”, Nietzsche sets out to denounce and illegitimize not only Christianity itself as a belief and a practice, but also the ethical-moral value system which modern western civilization has inherited from it.
These men are philosophers, theorists, thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and Sun Tzu, who cultivated the foundation of contemporary society. Thomas Hobbes wrote the Leviathan to describe the best way to maintain people’s security. On the other hand, Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War to explain methods using wits to outdo an enemy, overcome an obstacle, and avoid danger. To show how readers can understand how these philosophers work, we must construct a bare world, and apply their concepts. Therefore, in order to understand how philosophers defend society’s security, Hobbes’ lawless and savage “plenum” must be developed and analyzed to apply the concepts of Hobbes and Sun Tzu.
However, while it does seem to be the path of least resistance to let a responsible adult make the choices in Bartleby’s life, one must ask “isn’t one’s life made up of the choices he makes and to take away ones choices is to take away a man’s existence”. When Melville presents to us a character as Bartleby, it brings to the forefront of our minds this question of free will. It allows us to reflect on its importance just as we see it shining off the face of Bartleby. Free will is the most important commodity a person has; it is this trait that makes men leaders and commanders of the world. Whether it be choosing to stand up for liberty and pushing crates full of tea into the ocean or choosing not to, this trait defines us.
“You will see my point; the ascetic priest, the apparent enemy of life, this denier – precisely he is among the greatest conserving and yes- creating forces of life.” (Third Essay, § 13) At this point in the text, Nietzsche conveys to us the image of the ascetic priest as being a “denier” of life. An ascetic employs a strict measure of personal and spiritual discipline in appearance, attitude, and manner (Webster-Merriam Online Dictionary). “The ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life” (Third Essay § 13) Nietzsche says this because even though denying life in order to live the ascetic priest is essentially protecting the most important part, the mind. The ascetic priests reject life, not because what they’re denying is bad, but because in order to achieve this extreme discipline, they need to be in the most moral and favorable condition possible. Not that life is bad, but that the physical pleasures and physical reality are less than divine.