The highest moral right is liberty and from it any other goods will follow. These secondary rights could include freedom to get married, or be a musician, but these are to be pursued privately. Negative liberty is “freedom from”, only when an individual is free to make his own decisions and actions without coercion is a person truly free (Machan 5). This “freedom from” emphasizes right before good. According to Hospers The essential ingredient in all freedom from coercion by other is one’s basic and inalienable right; it is fundamental to human survival and the development of the self (Machan 8).
On the contrary, imprisoned in the Puritan way of thinking, the scarlet letter leads Arthur Dimmesdale to his fall. He is indeed gnawed by guilt and secrecy. *** The scarlet letter symbolises the Puritan’s stance on adultery and is considered as a deadly sin. The scarlet letter is referred to in almost every page. One has the impression that the letter represents the Puritan’s message that is drilled to the population in order to anchor it in their mind.
In On Liberty, Mill theorizes the Principle of Liberty, in which he states that mankind has no right to prevent any other man from committing an action unless it is to prevent them from causing harm to others. Society cannot reject an individual’s conduct just because the majority of people find it offensive. However, this doesn’t mean that society can’t enforce certain constraints on people’s conduct through the law. This restriction of actions that impede upon the well being of others is necessary in order to protect an individual’s fundamental rights and basic moral liberties. With this being said, society only has the right to restrict behavior on the basis of justice, and not because society deems it to be immoral.
Human Nature Thomas Hobbs and John Locke both developed well known theories on human nature and political philosophy. When we refer to these philosophers today Locke is seen as the optimist while Hobbes the pessimistic. Their theories of human nature translated into their views on how a society should be run. Despite their vast differences in views on human nature, they both agree that it is best for a society to have some form of social contract and a government enacted by the people. Hobbes pessimistic view on human nature was most likely a result of how he took in his surroundings.
This will force its citizens to find serenity through various coping mechanisms such as maligning the people in power and seeking solace through dreams, memories and voices. Through the application of Marxism, sexism and religion is shown to be used by the ruling class to make their plebs feel hopeless enough to survive by slipping into dreams and criticizing the upper classes. This will result in rebellion of a sort, where people who are powerless to actively rebel, do so by other means. In Saint Joan, this is shown in two methods. Firstly, rhetoric is used to show how the Archbishop considers himself as a god for the lower classes, and how the lower classes deal with this kind of class oppression by quietly slandering him when they can.
The strict idealism of god and his power placed fear in children, for they believe their faults will be treated with adverse repercussions. God was everything to the puritans. Breaking a covenant with god would have extreme consequences. Fear of god placed righteousness in the hearts of the people of the Massachusetts
Christian England approached the cruelness and injustice, which can be presented in the poems ‘London’, ‘The Chimney Sweep’ and ‘The Little Vagabond’. William Blake’s ‘London’ epitomises the prominent focus on a strong Marxist belief; “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains” . Blake immediately addresses this fundamental concept, through the use of “marks of weakness, marks of woe”. It is an example of hyperbolic Marxist propaganda, as the proletarians are demanded and taken for granted. Blake uses the adjectives ‘weakness’ and ‘woe’ in order to portray the fatigue due to exploitation.
These emotions provide insight into why mankind has continued to function for generations without becoming extinct, as good has constantly triumphed bad. If there was evil everywhere, society would not function like it does today, and people would constantly be committing crimes in order to better themselves In essence, evil exists and poor behaviour does occur, however; history proves that these outbursts are the exception, not the rule. Despite the existence of immorality, humankind is considered good to a significant extent. The atmosphere that one is surrounded with greatly influences beliefs and values of that individual. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau supported the true goodness of humanity and conceived that “man is born free and everywhere else he is in chains.” Man can be restricted by his circumstances, his economic state, his family, his nationality, and the race he belongs to, but that does not mean his basic human nature is evil.
In Martin Luther King’s acceptance speech for the noble peace prize, he articulates that nonviolence is a perfect answer to the crucial political and more question of our time- the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Individuals of the black race were patronized and attacked due to racial injustice. MLK created a notion of nonviolence in order to end this injustice. He emphasizes that demonstrating a nonviolent demeanor is a much powerful force, which allows social transformation. However in order for social transformation to exist we must all develop a mentality/lifestyle that rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The crime of heresy is defined as an opinion, disbelief or deliberate denial of an article of truth of the Catholic faith. At this time, there was a sense of Christian unity among townspeople and rulers alike, and most of them agreed with the Church that heretics seemed to threated society itself. However, the repression of heresy remained unorganized, and with the large scale heresies in the 11th and 12th centuries, Pope Gregory IX instituted the papal inquisition in 1231 for the apprehension and trial of heretics. The Inquisition was established as a special court to stop the spread of heresy. [4] Pope Gregory IX's response to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls became the papal inquisition.