There are many concepts that political theorists have made in history that have led to present day country functions. However there are three specific authors that I wanted to focus on through this essay. The names are Friedrich Hegel, Auguste Comte, and John Stuart Mill. This essay is going to show an in-depth look of explaining how the concept of idea, order and progress and liberty are shown back in history by these authors and how there is some form of thread connecting these 3 concepts together.
First to start off we are going to look at Friedrich Hegel and his concept of idea. Hegel was one of the most prominent idealists of the 19th century. On page 95, of The Great Political Theories, Hegel states, “The concept of idea has been only as mind, as something knowing itself and actual, because it is the objectification of itself, the movement running through the form of its movements. It is therefore formed with Family, Civil Society, and the Constitution of the State” (95). We can see here while idea can be an objective concept within itself, it will not work and cannot be a valid concept without family, civil society, or the Constitution of the State. Another big thing that Hegel talked about was universality and that the concept of idea is universal, but with that so is everything else. With universality and idea, we have duties and we have rights, but if they coalesce, subjectivity disappears and these specific duties, become objective. Civil Society is universal, becomes subjective with the unity of objectivism, and is for the protection of people and their property.
Moving on to Auguste Comte, his main concept was progress and oder and the reason being for this concept was because he was a Positivist. Comte states on page 148, “Order is the condition of all progress; progress is always the object of order. Or to penetrate the question still more deeply, progress may be regarded to simply as the development of order; for the order of nature necessarily contains within itself the germ of all possible progress” (148). What Comte is saying here is that Progress is the higher sense and the outcome of Order. He then goes into Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Progress and talks about how even though all three of them have differences, looking at them universally, they are almost the same materially speaking. However, Moral Progress looks more at our well being, even though it looks the same as Physical Progress. In civil society, progress adapts in the society that it is in. Comte wanted to protect the people by encouraging sympathy of the people in the society. This directly correlates with how Order and Progress works because encouraging sympathy progresses to social feelings to protect others.
The final political theorist I am going to discuss is John Stuart Mill. He was a utilitarian, but his main concept that he believed in was liberty. On page 187, Mill states, “Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion…”(187). This is saying everyone should have liberty, but there are a couple exceptions to liberty. For example, you have the liberty to be drunk, but you cannot be a cop that is drunk because you have a duty to society as a cop by keeping everybody safe from crime.
John Stuart Mill also states on page, 186 that, “The only purpose for for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant” (186). What Mill is saying here is that in a civil society the protection of others’ liberty or freedom can only happen for the good of the society or himself, the individual. If trying to preserve liberty cause harm to the individual or the civil society, true universal liberty cannot be reached because you are not doing anything to benefit yourself or benefit those who are a part of the civil society.
From the three authors we can see that the common thread all of them have is the duty to civil society. From Hegel, to Comte, even to John Stuart Mill, all have their take on how civil society should be integrated with each one of their concepts. Even though in Hegel’s concept of idea, he explained how civil society is universal and is for the protection of the people, it showed that the duty of those who are in the society whether it is the individual or not, their duty in society is for the protection of the people. We can say the same thing for Comte because he was the theorist who encouraged sympathy in his civil society. Without sympathy for the people and taking action to protect them in the society, you aren’t benefiting the society or even you, the individual. And to show how John Stuart Mill wants to benefit civil society we need to look at the freedom that you have to do what you want, which he classifies as liberty. Without true liberty than will you benefit the society? Chances are no, because you are not doing your duty to the society to protect the liberties that all the other citizens have in that specific civil society.
In conclusion, the three political theorists that I elaborated on, all were from different political views and all discussed different concepts. Idea, Order and Progress and Liberty are defined differently as face value, but if you read and see the different political theorists views you can see the differences and the commonalities (in this case civil society) within their excerpts. Who knew a positivist and an idealist could have the same kind of views on certain things; even a utilitarian.