Political philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Political philosophy - Essay Example agree that people were to renounce their liberty for the sake of social contract, regarding the issues like state of nature and subsequent development of social contract, they are deeply at odds. Hobbs introduced a state of nature which has certain horrific features. According to him, human beings are at incessant conflict or war. This war is visible at every sphere of life since the individual level to the international level. However in my opinion, Hobbs offers the best account of the state of nature. An array of examples could be given for supporting his view. Conflicts between the individuals, between ethnic groups, between nations all represent the basic nature of human propensity to fight. This endless insecurity made the social contract inevitable for maintaining peace. As compared to Hobbs, Locke’s approach to state of nature is rather mild. He states that people lived under a law of nature before the emergence of political power. Since they were self centered and lacked proper interpretation of right and wrong, inevitably conflicts occurred. In order to protect the individual interests they developed social contract initially in the form of society and further government. Rousseau was against the theories of the other two. According to him, natural human beings are neither good nor bad with limited reasoning capacity. If they think that government is their own, they would act in favor of that and therefore according to him, state is the result of dominance of the rich over poor and anything against the general will is against the human freedom. All these theories were criticized by Hegel. He proposed an extremely different opinion to defend the political power of state. According to him, state is not inherently the foe of man; instead, it is the system that realizes and defines his role as a citizen (Hinchman, 257). Hegel criticized the view that liberty existed before the establishment of the state. However, Hobbs theory stands up

What are some guidelines that would help one achieve individuality Essay

What are some guidelines that would help one achieve individuality - Essay Example Different people require different environment to develop and there is no single life pattern suitable for everyone (Ten, 1980). On individuality, John Stuart Mill recommends that people should not follow the custom just because it is the norm. Conforming would only compare human beings to apes and sheep, which rely on faculty of imitation (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). Instead, Mill wants people to choose their course of life more reflectively basing their decisions on their own experiences. Attaining individuality is dependent of reflection and deliberation. This involves use of distinctive human faculties including judgment, perception, mental activity, discriminative feeling and moral preference (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). Since individual natures are not transparent, people experience living, deliberate and reflect on these experiences and derive lessons from them. Following the lessons, an individual should then make right inferences regarding what is more suitable for them (Mill, Anderson & Anderson, 2003). In light of Mills’ advocacy for developing individuality, Vincent Ruggiero (2008) gives four steps that act as guidelines to assist in achieving individuality. The first step according to Ruggiero (2008) is treating an individual’s first reaction to another person, situation or issue with suspicion (Ruggiero, 2008). A person should not at first embrace that feeling or reaction without examining the reason as to why they reacted in such a manner. People, issue or situations bring out feeling of joy, shock, disappointment or hurt. It is important that a person, before internalizing these feeling, understands why they occurred in the first place. The second step involves deciding why they reacted as they did during the encounter. At this stage, if possible an individual should determine what specific