Michelle

Mertz
Political Philosophy Current Event

Directions:
Step 1: You need to find a CURRENT issue that governments are dealing with in the
world today.
Current Issue: Southeast Asia's haze crisis
Step 2: Then you need to evaluate how they are handling the issue.
How they are handling the issue: The countries affected by the fires are doing
the best they can to put out the fires with water and just hope that the
frequent rain can handle the rest. Unfortunately, their efforts have made
very little impact and the fires continue. The only other thing the
countries can do is evacuate the areas and be reading to evacuate mass
amounts of people.
Step 3: The next thing you will do is look at in from the eyes of the political
philosophers we have covered and determine how they would come to a solution
(Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, and Mills).
Locke: The government needs to make a plan of action that will ensure that
everyones life, liberty and property be protected. The people can vote on
the issue to make sure it protects these very rights.
Hobbes: Let the King handle it. This is not something for the people to
decide. Once the king decides it, it is important that the people do as he
commands.
Rousseau: The government needs to make a decision that recognizes the
collective good of society. This decision, of course, is voted on by every
citizen of the society and the government is simply enforcing the peoples
choice.
Marx: Focus on helping the lower and working classes. The rich always
have the advantage in crises such as thing one, and it is very important
that someone looks out for the people that dont have the means to
protects and provide for themselves.
Mills: The people should vote on a decision for what to do about the fires.
The government needs to make sure that the decision protects the people.
Everyone, in the meantime, can work on limiting the spread of the fires.
Everyone includes men and women, rich and poor (no one is superior
over anyone else in the effort to help).

Step 4: Finally, you need to assess the issue and determine how you would go about
solving the issue in your society.
Solution for issue: First off, I think it would be important to limit the
spread of the fire. To do this, I think everyone, that is able to, should work
to put out the fire by dousing the flames in water. If this has no effect,
then a second step would be to rely on the rains. If the rains do nothing,
then the third step would be to evacuate the areas affected by the fires
and wait them out until they stop. Since the haze doesnt affect the entire
lands of each country, the people wouldnt need to worry about fleeing to
a neighboring country and could just stay in their domestic areas. The
money to fund all this would be coming from the government because it is
an issue that affects every citizen equally. Once the fires are gone, the
people can move back into their homes and researchers can find out how
to stop these fires from starting again in the future.