Western Political Thinkers
Western thinkers questions test one-line doctrines and the ability to match a claim to its author, plus comparisons such as Hobbes versus Locke on the state of nature.
Greek and Renaissance
- Plato: justice as harmony of parts; philosopher king; communism of property and wives among guardians.
- Aristotle: man is a political animal; six-fold classification of constitutions; polity as the best practicable; the middle class stabilises.
- Machiavelli: secular statecraft, virtu, the ends justify the means in politics.
Social contract
- Hobbes: state of nature is war of all against all; absolute sovereign; security traded for liberty.
- Locke: natural rights to life, liberty and property; government by consent; right of revolution when trust is broken.
- Rousseau: general will versus will of all; popular sovereignty; direct democracy.
Utilitarians and Marx
- Bentham: greatest happiness of the greatest number; Mill: harm principle, representative government, women's suffrage; Marx: class struggle, surplus value, withering away of the state.
Worked example: 'The general will is always right.' For Rousseau this means the common good, not the sum of private preferences. The will of all adds up particular interests; the general will considers what citizens share, which is why he distinguishes voting outcomes from the general will.
Traps: Hobbes's sovereign rests on covenant, not divine right; Locke's property precedes the state; Mill defends liberty but not licence; Marx did not prescribe detailed blueprints for post-revolutionary society.