Paste your essay in here…Humans exist in distinctive political societies, with each state achieving different outcomes because of the beliefs they adopt in constructing their ideal societies. Political philosophers have been divided throughout history on what they believe the quintessential society should be and their purpose. I argue that the central difference among them is that classical understanding of the purpose of political society seeks to establish a collective wellness of society while modern understanding favors social contracts individuals create with the government to create a better life.
Political philosophers wrote on the type of society they viewed were ideals that their current society should be following. Noting the context, Plato and Aristotle were living in a time where their history of politics was the period they were living in, and given their constitutions, both argued for the self-sufficiency of the citizens. However, modern philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke lived in a period which underwent centuries of history, allowing them to draw on previous successes and failures of political societies, as well as a period of warring, which is why both philosophers emphasized heavily on the ensuring peace in their ideal political societies.
Classical political philosophers believed in citizen’s obligations to live their lives for the good of the state, which translates into the good of the society materializing when citizens come together as a collective. In Plato’s Republic, he presented his argument on the circumstances would constitute the exemplary city-state, or polis, which of note are personal virtue, citizenship, social order and governance. Plato asserted that a community starts to be formed when individual human beings find that they are not self-sufficient and each of them have plenty of requirements they cannot fulfil alone . Similarly, in Politics, Aristotle believed that “man is by nature an animal intended to live in a polis ” and that a natural order exists between the individual and community, which occurs as a struggle of power and resource distribution. He believed that communities forms and “grows for the sake of mere life” but continue to survive “for the sake of a good life” . Both Plato and Aristotle argued that the responsibility lies in the individual to be self-sufficient and to be a “good citizen”, which is to attend to one’s duties duly in order for the society to function as a whole. This also reflects the way in which the ancient Greeks emphasized the importance of order in the society.
In contrast, modern political philosophers believed that purpose of political societies is the contracts that citizens form with the government to resolve conflicts in creating a peaceful society. Hobbes’s view that life before the emergence of states as “nasty, brutish and short ” is grounded in his stance that human beings are innately equal, and the individual is inherently selfish. In Leviathan, he posits that the state of nature is a condition of “warre of every man against every man ”, and the principal causes of their “quarrell” is competition, diffidence and glory and the lack of a “common power to keep them all in awe” . Due to the unpredictability of human nature and their need for the scarce available resources, this results in the “right of nature” for each man “to use his own power” for the “preservation of his own Nature” . In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke also believes that all humans are equal and independent, and writes in A Letter Concerning Toleration, that they have a right to “life, liberty, health and property ” and “a right to their preservation ”. However, although human nature allowed people to be selfish, it is characterized by reason and tolerance . While both modern philosophers diverge in rationalizing, they both arrive at the conclusion that because of the nature of man, it results in the importance of the government or ruling authority to regulate the interactions between man to ensure the peace of society.
Plato constructed his ideal polis based on his beliefs that one’s place in society is determined by one’s natural abilities. His theory of the tripartite mind, mirrors the social structure, with the “producers” ruled by “desire”, “auxiliaries” by “passion” and rulers by “reason” . He claimed that each citizen needs to perform the role that he is by nature best suited for and stated that the construction of the community is not to make “one group … especially happy, but to maximize the happiness of the community as a whole ”.Aristotle similarly described the community as an “ordering of compounds ”, “a certain ordering of the inhabitants of the city state ”, comprising of households, economic classes and the local political units. Aristotle asserted that the community is only ordered if they possess an efficient authority, and his community establishes for the sake of the common good, where citizens participate in their public duties for the “common end ”. He used the recurring theme of good life and happiness throughout Politics to impress the idea that active participation in political matters would ensure that one would lead a virtuous and happy life .
Both Hobbes and Locke instead viewed humans as equals, who are entitled to the liberty of protecting their rights but diverge in their assessment of how social contracts should be with the government. In Leviathan, Hobbes believed in the sovereignty and secularity of the state, where citizens should give up both their allegiance to the church and their rights in exchange for physical security from the government. In order to establish a common power to keep the violence of men in check, he proposed a “covenant of every man with every man ”, creating a “commonwealth” ruled by a “sovereign” . In Second Treatise of Government, Locke viewed that individual rights start in interest of individual property and the commonwealth or social structure depends on the consent of the governed . He views civil society as being capable of resolving conflicts in a civil way with help from the government.
By rationalizing on the morality of individual and communities , Plato derived his argument that the polis should be governed by a ruler who has had philosophical training, thus being capable of comprehending the true nature of reality, justice and wisdom. A “philosopher king” is one who “has knowledge while everyone else has mere belief or opinion ”, and knowledge is infallible because it is “correlated with the truth of things ”, and Plato highlights this using the simile of the sun , in which the idea of goodness, which is knowledge, can illuminate the truth. Plato also theorizes that the less keen would-be are to rule, the better they would be since they would not be bias or corrupt but use reason and knowledge instead and are less subjective to corruption. Aristotle also opinioned that the “best legislators” is the mean. He favors a polity, the rule of the “middle class” because “moderation and the mean are always the best” , since they possess “moderate and adequate property” and act accordingly, not excess such as the few rich or many poor. Moreover, he reasoned that middle class men “are the most ready to listen to reason ”, because they have a “knowledge of rule over free men from both points of view ” that is “how to rule and how to obey ”. Thus, this would ensure the success of the republic.
Hobbes’s idea of a sovereign state materializes in Leviathan, led by a king who indiscriminately rules. In turn, citizens concede their individual liberty for security. This absolutist social contract reflects Hobbes’s view that a strong central power is the only means to prevent disintegration of social order. Since people are “in continual competition with each other for honour”, Hobbes opinionated that “political authority must be absolute” . Locke opposed Hobbes’s totalitarianism view, and focused on contractarianism. He ridiculed the unnecessary idea of an absolute ruler proposed by Hobbes, and advocating for a separation of legislative and executive power. His social contract is a commonwealth of “men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interest ” where “every one is bound by that consent” to “joyn and unite into a Community” for “[safe], and [peaceful] living … in a secure Enjoyment of their Properties”. This is possible because it does not “[injure] … the Freedom of the rest” . In A Letter Concerning Toleration, he posited that the government should protect work materializing as property , rule in the public good and regulate property by the “impartial execution of equal laws ”, but should it fail, by overstepping its bounds of promoting “civil power, right, and dominion” or “endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People ”, citizens have the right to revolution to change government for one that serves the interests of citizens .
To conclude, classical philosophers address the polis to create order in society while modern thinkers focuses on the social contract between citizens and their government to promote peaceful living among citizens.