Political Science: Test Series

IAS 2018
POLITICAL SCIENCE
TEST SERIES
By: Dr. PIYUSH CHAUBEY
TEST: 3
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Test - 03
Political Science Test Series 2018
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Time Allowed: 3 hr. Max. Marks: 250
SECTION A
1. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:
(a) Historic Materialism by Marx (10)
E
(b) Mill's defence of rights of women (10)
(c) Notion of Counter hegemony by Antonio Gramsci (10)
(d) Locke as an individualist out and out.

OR (10)
(e) Platonic classes and justice in the ideal state. (10)
2. Attempt all questions:

SC
(a) What compelling conditions are behind creation of State as per John Lock and what are its
basic features? (15)
(b) Describe how The Role of Community is of primal importance in Rousseau's contract?
What are its major features and what threats does it carry with itself? (15)
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(c) What do you understand by mill's statement of 'the oppressive effects of social pressure to
confirm'. Discuss the arguments given by mill in defence of individual freedom even In
case of eccentric and out spoken false opinion? (20)
(a) Theory of Natural Rights by John Locke with critical emphasis on his idea of Right to
Property. (15)
(b) Describe the features of Sovereignty as per Thomas Hobbes and its major critiques. (15)
(c) Hobbes's argument for an absolute sovereign is novel because he bases the authority of the
sovereign on consent. Explain the role of consent in his account and explain why he
believes that consent based on fear of death is morally binding. Also enumerate the major
attributes of Hobbesian Sovereignty. (20)
(a) Hanna Arendt's Notion of 'Vita Contemplative' and 'Vita Activa' (15)
(b) Comparison of Aristotle and Marx in terms of 'Revolution'. (15)
(c) Popper says “I believe that Plato was led, by his distrust of the common man, and by his
ethical collectivism, to approve of [political] violence.” How far do you think Karl Popper
was justified in his criticism of Plato? Also critically analyze the Scheme of Education
devised by Plato? (20)
Political Science [1]
SECTION B
5. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:
(a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci (10)
(b) Aristotle's idea of equality (10)
(c) Critique of General will by Rousseau (10)
(d) Basic principles of Utilitarianism by Bentham (10)
(e) Hannah Arendt on Revolution (10)
(a) Revolution from above' is considered to be a paradigm shift in Marxist philosophy', Analyse
the above statement with special reference to theorist of superstructure. (15)
(b) Marx borrows heavily from both Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism. Explain
with a detailed elaboration of both methods. (15)
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(c) "Since the ruler is outside the group, he is above the morality to be enforced within group".
Discuss the significance of this statement in context of Machiavelli's thoughts on morality
OR
and its relationship with state survival. (20)
(a) Hobbes starts with Individualism and liberalism but ended with totalitarianism. (15)
SC
(b) Western political thought mainly contains ideas of political idealism and political realism
in this context how far it is correct to say Plato as father of political Idealism and Aristotle
as a father of political Philosophy? (15)
(c) How is social contract theory of John Locke significantly different from that of Thomas
Hobbes? Illustrate with special emphasis on Locke's social contract. Why is his doctrine of
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resistance considered the most important part of his theory? (20)
(a) On what grounds can it be said that Machiavelli is amoral rather than immoral. (15)
(b) Mill's reluctance of democracy is his genuine concern for democracy, comment? (15)
(c) Discuss the Marx's idea of alienation, how far it is correct to say 'Idea of one dimensional
man' provides better understanding of modern capitalist industrial society? (20)

[ 2 ] Political Science
Test - 03
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Time Allowed: 3 hr. Max. Marks: 250
Instructions to Candidate
• There are EIGHT questions. Candidate has to attempt FIVE questions in all.
• Question no. 1 and 5 are compulsory and out of the remaining, THREE are to be attempted.
• Answers must be written in the medium authorized in the Admission certificate which must
be stated clearly on the cover of this Question-cum-Answer (QCA) booklet in the space
provided. No marks will be given for answers written in medium other than the authorized
one.
• Word limit in questions, wherever specified, should be adhered to.
• Attempts of questions shall be counted in chronological order. Unless struck off, attempt of
a question shall be counted even if attempted partly. Any page or portion of the page left
blank in the answer book must be clearly struck off.
Name _______________________________
Mobile No.___________________________
1. Invigilator Signature _______________ Date ________________________________
2. Invigilator Signature _______________ Signature ____________________________
2
REMARKS
Remarks
3
Roll No.____________
SECTION A
1. Answer the following questions: (150 Words Each) (10 × 5 = 50)
(a) Historic Materialism by Marx
(b) Mill's defence of rights of women
(c) Notion of Counter hegemony by Antonio Gramsci
(e) Platonic classes and justice in the ideal state.
Remarks
4
Remarks
5
Remarks
6
Remarks
7
Remarks
8
Remarks
9
Remarks
10
Remarks
11
(a) What compelling conditions are behind creation of State as per John Lock and what
are its basic features? (200 Words) (15 Marks)
What are its major features and what threats does it carry with itself?
(200 Words) (15 Marks)
(c) What do you understand by mill's statement of 'the oppressive effects of social
pressure to confirm'. Discuss the arguments given by mill in defence of individual
freedom even In case of eccentric and out spoken false opinion?
Remarks
12
Remarks
13
Remarks
14
Remarks
15
Remarks
16
Remarks
17
Remarks
18
Remarks
19
(a) Theory of Natural Rights by John Locke with critical emphasis on his idea of Right
to Property. (200 Words) (15 Marks)
(b) Describe the features of Sovereignty as per Thomas Hobbes and its major critiques.
(c) Hobbes's argument for an absolute sovereign is novel because he bases the authority
of the sovereign on consent. Explain the role of consent in his account and explain
why he believes that consent based on fear of death is morally binding. Also
enumerate the major attributes of Hobbesian Sovereignty.
Remarks
20
Remarks
21
Remarks
22
Remarks
23
Remarks
24
Remarks
25
Remarks
26
Remarks
27
(a) Hanna Arendt's Notion of 'Vita Contemplative' and 'Vita Activa'

(b) Comparison of Aristotle and Marx in terms of 'Revolution'.

(c) Popper says “I believe that Plato was led, by his distrust of the common man, and
by his ethical collectivism, to approve of [political] violence.” How far do you think
Karl Popper was justified in his criticism of Plato? Also critically analyze the Scheme
of Education devised by Plato? (250 Words) (20 Marks)
Remarks
28
Remarks
29
Remarks
30
Remarks
31
Remarks
32
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33
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35
SECTION B
5. Answer the following questions: (150 Words (10 × 5 = 50)
(a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci
(b) Aristotle's idea of equality
(c) Critique of General will by Rousseau
(d) Basic principles of Utilitarianism by Bentham
(e) Hannah Arendt on Revolution
Remarks
36
Remarks
37
Remarks
38
Remarks
39
Remarks
40
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41
Remarks
42
Remarks
43
(a) Revolution from above' is considered to be a paradigm shift in Marxist philosophy',

Analyse the above statement with special reference to theorist of superstructure.
(b) Marx borrows heavily from both Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism.
Explain with a detailed elaboration of both methods. (200 Words) (15 Marks)
(c) "Since the ruler is outside the group, he is above the morality to be enforced within
group". Discuss the significance of this statement in context of Machiavelli's thoughts
on morality and its relationship with state survival. (250 Words) (20 Marks)
Remarks
44
Remarks
45
Remarks
46
Remarks
47
Remarks
48
Remarks
49
Remarks
50
Remarks
51
(a) Hobbes starts with Individualism and liberalism but ended with totalitarianism.
(b) Western political thought mainly contains ideas of political idealism and political
realism in this context how far it is correct to say Plato as father of political Idealism
and Aristotle as a father of political Philosophy? (200 Words) (15 Marks)
(c) How is social contract theory of John Locke significantly different from that of
Thomas Hobbes? Illustrate with special emphasis on Locke's social contract. Why is
his doctrine of resistance considered the most important part of his theory?
Remarks
52
Remarks
53
Remarks
54
Remarks
55
Remarks
56
Remarks
57
Remarks
58
Remarks
59
(a) On what grounds can it be said that Machiavelli is amoral rather than immoral.
(b) Mill's reluctance of democracy is his genuine concern for democracy, comment?
(c) Discuss the Marx's idea of alienation, how far it is correct to say 'Idea of one
dimensional man' provides better understanding of modern capitalist industrial
society? (250 Words) (20 M ark s)
Remarks
60
Remarks
61
Remarks
62
Remarks
63
Remarks
64
Remarks
65
Remarks
66
Remarks
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POLITICAL SCIENCE
Answer Hints: Test No.3
SECTION A
1. (a) Historic Materialism by Marx

• Historical materialism is the application of dialectical materialism to the interpretation of
history. It is the economic interpretation of world history by applying the Marxian methodology
of dialectical materialism. The world history has been divided into four stages: primitive
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communism, the slavery system, feudalism and capitalism. Primitive communism refers to
the earliest part of human history. It was a property less, exploitation less, classless and
OR
stateless society. Means of production were backward, because technology was undeveloped.
The community owned the means of production.
• They were not under private ownership and so there was no exploitation. Stone made
hunting weapons, the fishing net and hooks were the means of production. The entire
community owned these. Production was limited and meant for self-consumption.
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• There was no surplus production and so there was no private property. Since there was no
private property, there was no exploitation. Since there was no exploitation, there was no
class division. Since there was no class division, there was no class struggle. Since there was
no class struggle there was no state. It was, thus, a communist society, but of a primitive
type.
• Though life was difficult, it was characterized by the absence of exploitation, conflict and
struggle. Technology is not static; it evolves continuously. Technological development results
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in the improvement of production. This leads to surplus production, which results in the
emergence of private property.
• Means of production are now not under the community, but private ownership. Society is,
thus, divided into property owning and property less classes. By virtue of the ownership of
the means of production, the property owning class exploits the property less class. Class
division in society and exploitation lead to class struggle. Since there is class struggle, the
dominant class that is the property owning class creates an institution called the state to
suppress the dissent of the dependent class that is the property less class. Thus, the state is
a class instrument and a coercive institution. It protects the interests of its creator that is the
property owning class.
• In the beginning, this society is divided into masters and slaves. Masters are the haves and
the slaves are the have not’s. The slaves carry out all the production work. The masters live
on the labour of slaves. They exploit the slaves and whenever the slaves resent, the state
comes to the rescue of the masters. Thus, the state serves the interests of the master class.
It uses its coercive powers to suppress the voice of the slaves.
• The slave system is succeeded by feudalism. Technological development leads to changes in
the means of production and this brings about corresponding changes in the relations of
production and the superstructure. The slave system is replaced by the feudal mode of
Hints: Political Science [1]
production and it is reflected in the society, polity, morality and the value system. The
division of society into feudal lords and peasants characterizes feudalism. The feudal lords
own the means of production, that is land, but the peasants carry out the production work.
• By virtue of ownership of the land, the feudallords get a huge share of the produce without
doing anything. Thus, the feudal lords are like parasites, who thrive on the labour of peasants.
Feudal lords exploit the peasants and if the peasants ever resist their exploitation, their
resistance is ruthlessly crushed by the state, which protects and serves the interests of the
feudal lords. The peasants are a dependent and exploited class, whereas the lords are a
dominant and exploiting class.
• Capitalism succeeds feudalism. Technological development continues and so there is change
in the forces of production, which leads to a mismatch between the forces of production and
the relations of production, which is resolved through a bourgeois revolution. Thus the
contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production is resolved.
• The feudal mode of production is replaced by the capitalist mode of production. Division of
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society into the bourgeois and the proletariat class characterizes capitalism. The bourgeois
class owns the means of production, but the proletariat class carries out the production.
Proletariats are the industrial workers. They sell their labour in lieu of meagre wages. It is
OR
usually a subsistence wage, which is sufficient only to support them and their families, so
that an uninterrupted supply of labour force can be maintained.
• Production is not for consumption by the self, but for profit. The desire to maximize profit
leads to a reduction in wages and a rise in working hours. This further deteriorates the lot
of the working class, which is eventually pushed into a situation, where it has nothing to
lose except its chains. This paves the way for the proletariat revolution.
SC
(b) Mill's defence of rights of women

• Mill was convinced that the moral and intellectual advancement of humankind would result
in greater happiness for everybody. He asserted that the higher pleasures of the intellect
yielded far greater happiness than the lower pleasure of the senses. He conceived of human
beings as morally and intellectually capable of being educated and civilised. Mill believed
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everyone should have the right to vote, with the only exceptions being barbarians and
uneducated people.
• Mill argues that people should be able to vote to defend their own rights and to learn to
stand on their two feet, morally and intellectually. This argument is applied to both men and
women. Mill often used his position as a Member of Parliament to demand the vote for
women, a controversial position for the time.
• In Mill’s time a woman was generally subject to the whims of her husband and/or father
due to social norms which said women were both physically and mentally less able than
men, and therefore needed to be “taken care of.” Contributing to this view were both
hierarchical religious views ofmen and women within the family and social theories based
on biological determinism. The archetype of the ideal woman as mother, wife and homemaker
was a powerful idea in 19th century society.
• At the time of writing, Mill recognized that he was going against the common views of
society and was aware that he would be forced to back up his claims persistently. Mill
argued that the inequality of women was a relic from the past, when “might was right,” But
it had no place in the modern world. Mill saw that having effectively half the human race
unable to contribute to society outside of the home as a hindrance to human development.
“The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief
[ 2 ] Hints: Political Science
hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect
equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.
• “Mill attacks the argument that women are naturally worse at some things than men, and
should, therefore, be discouraged or forbidden from doing them. He says that we simply
don’t know what women are capable of, because we have never let them try - one cannot
make an authoritative statement without evidence. We can’t stop women from trying things
because they might not be able to do them. An argument based on speculative physiology
is just that, speculation. “The anxiety of mankind to intervene on behalf of nature...is an
altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous
to forbid them from doing. “In this, men are basically contradicting themselves because they
say women cannot do an activity and want to stop them from doing it.
• Here Mill suggests that men are basically admitting that women are capable of doing the
activity, but that men do not want them to do so.Whether women can do them or not must
be found out in practice. In reality, we don’t know what women’s nature is, because it is
so wrapped up in how they have been raised. Mill suggests we should test out what women
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can and can’t do - experiment.”I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the
two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another.
•
OR
Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between
women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be
found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely. “Women are brought
up to act as if they were weak, emotional, docile - a traditional prejudice. If we tried
equality, we would see that there were benefits for individual women. They would be free
of
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• The unhappiness of being told what to do by men. And there would be benefits for society
at large - it would double the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of
humanity. The ideas and potential of half the population would be liberated, producing a
great effect on human development.
• Mill’s essay is clearly utilitarian in nature on three counts: The immediate greater good, the
enrichment Of society, and individual development. If society really wanted to discover
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what is truly natural in gender relations, Mill argued, it should establish a free market for
all of the services women perform, ensuring a fair economic return for their contributions
to the general welfare. Only then would their practical choices be likely to reflect their
genuine interests and abilities.
• Mill felt that the emancipation and education of women would have positive benefits for
men also. The stimulus of female competition and companionship of equally educated persons
would result in the greater intellectual development of all. He stressed the insidious effects
of the constant companionship of an uneducated wife or husband. Mill felt that men and
women married to follow customs and that the relation between them was a purely domestic
one. By emancipating women, Mill believed, they would be better able to connect on an
intellectual level with their husbands, thereby improving relationships.
• Mill attacks marriage laws, which he likens to the slavery of women, “there remain no legal
slaves, save the mistress of every house.” He alludes to the subjection of women becoming
redundant as slavery did before it. He also argues for the need for reforms of marriage
legislation whereby it is reduced to a business agreement, placing no restrictions on either
party. Among these proposals are the changing of inheritance laws to allow women to keep
their own property, and allowing women to work outside the home, gaining independent
financial stability.
• Again the issue of women’s suffrage is raised. Women make up half of the population, thus
they also have a right to a vote since political policies affect women too. He theorises that
most men will vote for those MPs who will subordinate women, therefore women must be
allowed to vote to protect their own interests.
• “Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage,
there isnot a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same.”Mill felt that
even in societies as unequal as England and Europe that one could already find evidence
that when given a chance women could excel.
• He pointed to such English queens as Elizabeth I, or Victoria, or the French patriot, Joan of
Arc. If given the chance women would excel in other arenas and they should be given the
opportunity to try.Mill was not just a theorist; he actively campaigned for women’s rights
as an MP and was the president of the National Society for Women’ Suffrage.
(c) Notion of Counter hegemony by Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci conceived of two methods for challenging hegemony: a ‘war of manoeuvre’ and a ‘war of
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position,’ best understood as points on a continuum rather than mutually exclusive options. A ‘war
of manoeuvre’ involves physically overwhelming the coercive apparatus of the state. However, the
success of this strategy depends on the nature of the state’s hegemony, that is, its position within
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civil society. In a comparison of the state in Czarist Russia with that in liberal democracies (referred
to as the East and the West respectively), Gramsci notes that the strength of the latter lies in a sturdy
civil society [here Gramsci uses the term State to mean government, or political society, as opposed
to his more broad definition used elsewhere and throughout this text (i.e. State= political society +
civil society)]:
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• In the East the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West,
there was a proper relation between State and civil society, and when the state faltered, a
sturdy structure of civil society was immediately revealed. The State was just a forward
trench; behind it stood a succession of sturdy fortresses and emplacements.
In modern liberal democracies, direct confrontation (armed uprising, general strike, etc.) will
not threaten the dominant groups so long as their credibility and authority is firmly rooted
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in civil society. Buttigieg notes, “Civil society, in other words, far from being a threat to
political society in a liberal democracy, reinforces it—this is the fundamental meaning of
hegemony “Perry Anderson, “Gramsci hegemony means the ideological subordination of the
working class by bourgeoisie which enable it to rule by consent”.
• However, Gramsci does not give up on the notion of radical change in liberal democracies,
he was a writer principally focused on a radical transformation of capitalist society. His
central concern was “how might a more equitable and just order be brought about, and
what is it about how people live and imagine their lives in particular times and places that
advances or hampers progress to this more equitable and just order”
• Consequently, it was his view that “one should refrain from facile rhetoric about direct
attacks against the State and concentrate instead on the difficult and immensely complicated
tasks that a ‘war of position’ within civil society entails”. Described by Gramsci as “the only
viable possibility in the West,” a ‘war of position’ is resistance to domination with culture,
rather than physical might, as its foundation. Cox succinctly describes a ‘war of position’ as
process which “slowly builds up the strength of the social foundations of a new state” by
“creating alternative institutions and alternative intellectual resources within existing society”.
The complex program of radical social change in a modern liberal democracy, as described
by Gramsci, involves more than anything, developing a strong and dynamic culture capable
of establishing the necessary institutions for a subversion of hegemony.
According to M. Seligar (the liberal politics of John Locke), “John Locke was the first political
philosopher to elaborate modern liberalism and individualism as a comprehensive and influential
system of thought”. The Reasons why Locke is considered an individualist out and out are as
follows:
• He believed that man is by nature a rational being.
• He recognized that human reason was superior to the knowledge of history
• He recognized the natural rights of man
• He treated private property as the epitome of individual rights consecrated by the law of
nature
• He conceived ‘contract’ as the judicial basis of the state
• He regarded civil society as an artificial contrivance invented for the convenience of man
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• In his view, political authority was not indivisible, and he recognized the right to resistance
against the established political authority
OR
In his First treatise of Civil Government Locke sought to refute the particular version of theory of
divine right of kings, propounded by Robert Filmer and in his Second Treatise of Civil Government,
he postulated that by nature human beings are equal and therefore nothing can put anyone under
the authority of anybody else except by his own consent.
C. B. Macpherson in The political theory of Possessive Individualism has termed Locke’s view
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regarding the right to property as a typical expressing of the idea of ‘possessive individualism’. The
individual is the natural proprietor of his own capacities, owing nothing to society for them.
Accordingly society is seen as a lot of free and equal individuals related to each other through their
possessions and not as those held by reciprocal rights or duties. Finally according to Locke Political
society is seen as a rational choice for the protection of property of individuals where life and liberty
are also reduced to their possessions.
(e) Platonic classes and justice in the ideal state.
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• The platonic state consists of three distinct classes, distinguished from each other not by
qualifications of birth and wealth, but by their innate capacities and the specific functions
they discharge. They are the producing class, the warrior class and the ruling class.
• The ideal state must exhibit all the virtues of a good community which the ancient Greeks
classified under four heads: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. These were known
as the four cardinal virtues. A state is called wise if the ruling class displays wisdom in the
direction and management of its affairs, it is known as brave if the military class displays
courage both in peace and war, and it would exhibit self-control or temperance if the
producing and military classes recognising the needs of submitting to the control of the
ruling class and the ruling class also recognises the need of supplying wise direction of
affairs.
• In short, the state will be temperate or self-controlled if there is harmony among the different
groups or classes born of devotion to the same end in all. And justice is nothing but the
principle that each man should pursue that one function for which he is best fitted by
nature.
• It is that quality in an agent in virtue of which it does its particular work well. It appeared
at an early stage in the construction of the ideal state that if the various economic groups
or producing classes perform the tasks assigned to them regardless of what others do, and
the military class devotes itself in a spirit of selfless service to the task of providing protection
to the community under the supervision; and control of the guardians and the guardians
themselves maintain right relation between the several elements and do not allow anyone
to interfere with the work of another and themselves carry on their activities in the light of
the knowledge of the Good, perfect Justice will be realised in the State.
• Under such a condition each one will get his due; each one will confine him to the performance
of the duties imposed on him by the state in life. Justice is thus the principle that each person
should limit himself to the function for which he is best fitted by nature and nurture; it is
the principle of specialization and individual concentration of duty. It leads to specialization
in so far as it demands concentration on one’s appointed function or duty; it means no
interference so far no element in society is allowed to usurp the functions of another.
• A society in which every individual (and every class) confines himself to the disinterested
performance of his duty must necessarily be internally balanced and harmonious. Obviously,
Plato’s theory presupposes that there is nothing radically anti-social or unsocial in a well-
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bred individual which might result in disharmony. It also implies that there is no conflict or
opposition between the interests of an individual and those of the society and therefore there
can be no conflict between the duty and inclination.
OR
• If ever there occurs a clash between duty and inclination, it must be due to either faulty
education or to social mal-adjustment. It should, therefore, be removable by proper education
and better adjustment of social relations. Force or suppression is no remedy for it.
• What has been described above is Social justice or justice in State. The problem posed before
Plato was however, Personal justice or justice in the individual. Plato holds that the principle
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of justice remains the same whether it is manifested on the social plan or in the individual.
This means that a just man should so order his life that appetite and spirit should subject
to and obey reason.
• The former are not to be starved or annihilated; they are to be subordinated and controlled
by the highest element in man, namely, reason. There would be harmony and internal
balance in his life, and he would attain the highest excellence or goodness of which human
nature is capable; he would become self-consistent and good and happy. The just man
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would devote himself to that particular function for which he is best suited by nature and
would attain internal harmony.
• Finally, it should be noted that Plato does not use the term justice in the juristic or legal sense
as we do. It involves no reference at all to the rights of individuals and to their maintenance
through law courts. It has nothing to do with the preservation of public peace and order.
• For Plato, justice is a social virtue; it is a principle which governs the relations between
groups. It deals with the ways in which a whole community may attain goodness; it is the
theory of the manner in which a society is to live if it were to attain happiness. It is the final
answer of Plato to the Sophists who reached the doctrine of individualism in life and theory.
It shows that the individual is not an isolated self but a part of a whole and cannot pursue
his happiness apart from that whole.
2. (a) What compelling conditions are behind creation of State as per John Lock and what are
its basic features?
• According to him, man lived in the State of Nature, but his concept of the State of Natures
different as contemplated by Hobbesian theory. Locke’s view about the state of nature is not
as miserable as that of Hobbes. It was reasonably good and enjoyable, but the property was
not secure. He considered State of Nature as a “Golden Age”. It was a state of “peace,
goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation”.
• In that state of nature, men had all the rights which nature could give them. Locke justifies
this by saying that in the State of Nature, the natural condition of mankind was a state of
perfect and complete liberty to conduct one’s life as one best sees fit. It was free from the
interference of others. In that state of nature, all were equal and independent. This does not
mean, however, that it was a state of license: one is not free to do anything at all one pleases,
or even anything that one judges to be in one’s interest. The State of Nature, although a state
wherein there was no civil authority or government to punish people for transgressions
against laws, was not a state without morality.
• The State of Nature was pre-political, but it was not pre-moral. Persons are assumed to be
equal to one another in such a state, and therefore equally capable of discovering and being
bound by the Law of Nature. So, the State of Nature was a ‘state of liberty ‘, where persons
are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from interference and, because of the
Law of Nature and the restrictions that it imposes upon persons, it is relatively peaceful.
• The State of Nature therefore, is not the same as the state of war, as it is according to
Hobbes. It can, however devolve into a state of war, in particular, a state of war over
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property disputes. Whereas the State of Nature is the state of liberty where persons recognize
the Law of Nature and therefore do not harm one another, the state of war begins between
two or more men once one man declares war on another, by stealing from him, or by trying
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to make him his slave. Since in the State of Nature there is no civil power to whom men can
appeal, and since the Law of Nature allows them to defend their own lives, they may then
kill those who would bring force against them. Since the State of Nature lacks civil authority,
once war begins it is likely to continue. And this is one of the strongest reasons that men
have to abandon the State of Nature by contracting together to form civil government.
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• Thus, state of nature was all good, co-operative and harmonious and people were leading
their life in light of reason. But, the major problem was identification of laws, interpretation
of laws and implementation of laws. Besides these, there was problem of a well-recognized
authority to deliver justice according to law. Thus, Locke’s state of nature was state of
inconvenience. So, to remove/overcome these inconvenience, people set to have social
contracting order to establish a state which can rule according to the wish of majority of
people. Locke transferred only the right of interpretation of laws and authority to the state,
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not their natural rights. This contract is at first level among the masses in which they leave
their rights and give these rights to a political community which were the cause of
inconvenience.
• This contract is majoritarian in nature. It is irrevocable. It is applicable to the next generation
because it contains the silent consent of next generation, although Locke believed that a
childish subject of no country or government. Under this agreement people leave some
rights, not all natural rights and these rights were transferred to whole society, not a group
or individual and the whole society is authorized to choose government, According to Locke,
through agreement, it is end of state of nature, not natural laws.
• There is a controversy about the number of contracts. Scholars like Vaughn and Sabine
believed that there are two contracts- one is original which is among the masses to create
the state, and the other was with the government, in Locke’s words “which creates fiduciary
trust”. John Locke considered property in the State of Nature as insecure because of three
conditions; they are:-
– Absence of established law;
– Absence of impartial Judge; and
– Absence of natural power to execute natural laws.
• Thus, man in the State of Nature felt need to protect their property and for the purpose of
protection of their property, men entered into the “Social Contract”. Under the contract,
man did not surrender all their rights to one single individual, but they surrendered only the
right to preserve / maintain order and enforce the law of nature. The individual retained
with them the other rights, i.e., right to life, liberty and estate because these rights were
considered natural and inalienable rights of men.
• Having created a political society and government through their consent, men then gained
three things which they lacked in the State of Nature: laws, judges to adjudicate laws, and
the executive power necessary to enforce these laws. Each man therefore gives over the
power to protect himself and punish transgressors of the Law of Nature to the government
that he has created through the compact.
• According to Locke, the purpose of the Government and law is to uphold and protect the
natural rights of men. So long as the Government fulfils this purpose, the laws given by it
are valid and binding but, when it ceases to fulfil it, then the laws would have no validity
and the Government can be thrown out of power. In Locke’s view, unlimited sovereignty is
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contrary to natural law.
• Hence, John Locke advocated the principle of - “a state of liberty; not of license”. Locke
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advocated a state for the general good of people. He pleaded for a constitutionally limited
government.
What are its major features and what threats does it carry with itself?
In the hands of Rousseau the Contract theory does not lead to the individualistic conception of the
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state, for him the community is the chief moralising agency and therefore represents the highest
moral value.
Firstly men form themselves into groups with a view to getting the support of the community as a
whole for the protection and security of their person and property. Secondly, they desire to retain
as much freedom as possible. Since these two objectives are universal, the terms of the agreement
which would fulfil them must be equally universal.
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• The first point to be noted is that each member gives his all to the society. This makes the
community absolute. But this absoluteness is tempered by certain considerations. The alienation
is made on terms the same for all of them. Since the terms are the same for all no one has
any interest in making them tyrannical or burdensome, for he will suffer from them as much
as anybody else. In other words, the community that is born as a result of the pact cannot
possibly be oppressive; it cannot possibly be opposed to freedom.
• Though the surrender is total or complete and is made without any reserve, it is implicit in
the nature of the case that the ‘all’ that is surrendered means only that which concerns the
community as whole. That which is purely personal is left to the individual; the community
shall have nothing to do with it. Of course it is for the community to decide whether a thing
is of public concern or of strictly personal interest.
• The second thing on which Rousseau lays stress is that under the pact no one is a loser,
while everyone is a gainer. Nobody stands to lose anything because in giving himself up to
all, he does not give himself up to anyone; and what he gives to all, he receives back as an
indivisible part of the whole. No one loses anything because there is no member of the
community over whom an individual does not acquire the same rights which he gives to
others over himself. Everyone thus recovers the equivalent of what he loses. Everybody is a
gainer because he gets the additional strength of the community in the preservation and
enjoyment of what he has.
• Moreover, since the surrender of their powers by the members to the community is complete
and is made without any reserve, the union which results from it is as perfect as possible.
No person has any claims or privileges; all stand on a footing of equality. In civil society the
citizens thus secure not only liberty but equality also.
• Thirdly it should be observed that the surrender is made, not to an irresponsible sovereign
as it is in Hobbes, but to an entity of which every individual is a constituent part and over
whose activities he has the same degree of control as any other members of the community.
As a member of the sovereign body each individual is not merely as free as he was before,
but much more so under social conditions.
• The fourth point to which attention should be paid is that the ideal society is organic in
character; it is individualistic like the body politic of Hobbes’s or Locke’s conception. It is not
merely a device made by the contracting members for their mutual benefit and having no
end beyond that of contributing to the security and comfort, in a word, to their self-satisfaction.
It is moral and collective being having its own life, will and entity; Rousseau describes it as
a public person. It has a common life of its own, like that of a tree; and just as the roots,
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leaves and branches contribute to the life of the tree and can have no significance or value
apart from the life of the tree in which they share, the individual members of the state also
receive all the value and significance they have from their contribution to and participation
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in the common life of the community. This implies a complete abandonment of the
individualism which was a pronounced feature of the Hobbesian and Lockean theories , and
the restoration of the old Greek view according to which an individual can lead a good and
happy life only in and thorough association with his fellows.
• In addition to the values which the state protects and promotes, it has a value of its own.
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And the reason which leads the individuals to render obedience is not enlightened self-
interest; it is the perception that it is the state and state alone which lifts them above the life
of the brute and makes them truly human, that it alone provides the conditions necessary
for the development of a full, rich and moral personality; that outside society there is nothing
like freedom and development.
• Rousseau makes politics a branch of morals; the aim of politics is to enable the individual
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to develop his moral being and lead a good life.it is the great merit of Rousseau, to have
made the people sovereign through his theory of general will. To have provided for a will
which is at once actual or real and general? Unfortunately, it is not easy to state precisely
what the General will is.
• It would be recalled that Bodin and Hobbes located sovereignty in the ruler; they were
advocates of despotic monarchy. Locke and Montesquieu supported the cause of individual
liberty and defended the constitutional or limited government. They fought shy of the
conception of sovereignty as if it were a mortal enemy of the liberty; they thought that this
idea was indivisibly mixed with the monarchist and absolutist ideas, as indeed it was in the
theories of Bodin and Hobbes. In a flash of inspiration Rousseau saw that if sovereignty was
located in the people rather than in the ruler, the theory would prove to be the most
powerful weapon against absolutism. After him the theory of popular sovereignty became
the rallying point of all democracies.
• For previous thinkers, the important thing was not to discover what the people wanted but
what was best for them. For Rousseau it was not enough to show that activities of the
government were in the best interest of the people; the problem for him was to organize
society in such a way that the group could act without in any way frustrating the will of
any individual. This can be ensured only if the acts commanded by the sovereign are at the
same time willed by the individuals. This is best secured through the operation of the
General Will. Rousseau’s social pact is devised to achieve this objective; namely, that in
obeying the community the individual obeys himself and no external community.
• The distinctive element in Rousseau’s social pact is that the community or commonwealth
which comes into existence as the result of social contract is itself the sovereign. It does not
proceed to make any power or authority outside itself sovereign, but becomes sovereign and
continues to be ever afterwards. It is thus crystal clear that unlike previous writers who had
thought of the political society or commonwealth, upon its formation by compact, as instituting
a sovereign. Rousseau thinks of the society itself becoming sovereign in the act of its formation
and ever after continuing so.
• what man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything
he tries to get and success in getting; what he gains is civil liberty…which is limited by the
general will….we might, over and above all this add that what man acquires in the civil
state, is moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for obedience to the
mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves
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is liberty.
• It is in through the membership of the state that he becomes a moral agent; his acts acquire
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a moral quality that they did not have before. An individual becomes capable of morality
when he learns that there is another law than that of force, that there are things which he
ought to do as distinguished from things which he might be forced to do. This consciousness
can arrive on him only in and through the membership of civil society, Apart from society
a man remains a slave to his impulses and instincts, he knows of no law of life other than
physical impulse; as a member of society he learns to regulate and control his impulses in
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the light of a universal law.

Features of the Pact
• General will is disinterested and that also in two fold manner. Firstly, it always aims at the
common good; it is concerned only with those things which are common concern, and not
at all with those which are purely personal. Secondly, in dealing with the former it is
actuated by public spiritedness. If the members of the community think of problems of
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common concern but from the point of a view of personal or sectional gain, the result cannot
be called General will. In order to arrive to at the General will members must deal not only
with what concerns all, but also think about it from the point of view of the common good.
• General will must be general not only in its purpose but also in its composition and it must
take into consideration the will of each member of the community. Every member is received
as an integral member of the society.
• The pact demands unanimity but it is not fully possible and Rousseau accepts it.
• There is distinction between the General Will and Will of all. Sum total of the wills of all
individual members can never constitute the general will, because the former takes note of
the personal and private interests, while the latter deals with matters of common concern
only. General will is not a compromise between the conflicting will of the members, but a
single unitary will. The General will is unitary because the sovereign body which expresses
it is a ‘moral and collective ‘person, having a life, will and purpose of its own.
• The manner in which a body like the British or Indian cabinet arrives at decisions on
questions of national importance approximates most closely to Rousseau’s conception. As a
result of the discussion in which every member has the right to participate a common view
[10] Hints: Political Science
emerges which represents the largest measure of agreement among them. Even where complete
agreement is not reached, the dissenting members accept the decision in good grace; they
feel satisfied that they have their say and have contributed in some measure to the decision
that emerges. One condition is needed that all the members shall lay aside personal and
selfish considerations and look at the problems confronting them from the point of view of
common good.
• Rousseau is well aware of the fact that an individual may, as a particular man have a
particular will contrary to the general will he may have as a citizen. His particular and
personal interest may demand of him a course of action different from and opposed to that
required by the general will. The actual will of a criminal urges him to avoid interest, but
his real will demands that he should surrender himself to the police and welcome the jail
sentence. If one does not voluntarily do what the real or general will demands; it becomes
the right and duty of the community to compel the disobedient individual to obey the
general will. ‘The social compact ….tacitly includes the undertaking that whosever refuses
to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing
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else than that he will be forced to be free; for such is the condition which, by uniting each
citizen to his community; secures him against all personal dependence’.
•
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The paradoxical character of the above assertion disappears when it is realised that there
can be no clash between the true interest of the state and those of the individual , as there
can be none between the needs of the body as a whole and those of its various organs. The
state is an organic unity comparable to the body. The conflict arises only when an individual
seeks to follow a course of action opposed to the well-being of the whole. In such a case the
society has the right to compel the individual to obey its will.
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• It must be remembered that Rousseau was not engaged in describing actual states, his
purpose was to outline an ideal state which would reconcile individual sovereignty with
state sovereignty.
• Rousseau says that sovereignty is invisible and inalienable. He wants to convey the idea that
the General will can and must reside in the community as a whole which alone can embody
it; it cannot be divided or split up even among the various organs of the government like
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legislature or executive. To divide it would be to destroy it , for in that case one part would
assert its authority over the others, and that means that sovereignty of the General will no
longer remains the will of the entire group functioning as unity. The legislature and the
Executive cannot be sovereign; they are nothing but subordinate agencies to carry out what
the General will lays down. In a similar manner sovereignty or General will is inalienable.
The people cannot surrender or delegate their sovereign power to an individual or a group;
to delegate it to the legislature means that the people in do not continuously share in the
exercise the sovereign authority and therefore do not remain free. Practical considerations
make representative make representative democracy indispensable in the present era. But
according to Rousseau, after the elections are over the people are enslaved and count for
nothing; their representatives are under no obligation to reflect their opinions; they are apt
to be influenced by those who wield power and authority; Rousseau is thus against
parliamentary institutions.
• Lastly, it cannot be made executive will; its function is to make laws but not to execute them;
their execution must be entrusted to a different agency; namely, the government. The General
will cannot itself undertake the work of executing the laws because it is impersonal and
universal, while the decrees of government are particular and personal. Rousseau is thus led
to draw a distinction between the people who are sovereign and the government which is
subordinate and therefore responsible to the people.
Threats and Challenges in Rousseau’s Theory of General Will:
• The Tyranny of Majority: it is usually said that though the objective of Rousseau was to
secure individual liberty, his theory became one of the strongest defences of majority tyranny.
The individual who does not see eye to eye with the majority can be made to submit to the
view of the latter, in the oft quoted words of Rousseau he can ‘be forced to be free’. There
seems to be no escape or protection to those who dissent from the view of the majority.
• Encouragement to Individualism: He has been charged equally often of encouraging an
individualism that will end in anarchy. This anomaly can be explained in the words of Professor
Wright: “the book is neither for the individualist or absolutist. In the struggle between the state
and individual which has been the torment of political philosophy from Aristotle down, it
offers a proposal of peace. Real liberty is made possible by the State; and the greater is the
power with which State is armed, the more secure will be the liberty individual can enjoy in it.
Rousseau realised this truth and provides for both in his theory.it is failure to understand the
interdependence of the two that gives rise to such lopsided criticism.
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• Misuse of the Theory of General Will: The fact that the theory of General will can be and
has been sued to justify suppression of individual liberty cannot be denied. It has got to be
admitted that it can be and has been converted into a powerful defence of the right of the
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majority to force its views on minority. But the answer is that such abuse is not a legitimate
conclusion from a theory of General will. Those who misuse it forget that the General will
has a basis in morality and justice. Since the state of Rousseau is a moral state –it must be
remembered that he describes the civil society resulting from the Social Compact as a moral
person…there can be no question of the individual being made to suffer as a result of
dependence upon it.
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• General Will’s application to Practice is limited: The real defect inherent in Rousseau’s
theory of General Will may be said to lie in the fact that its application in practice is very
limited. The condition for its realization in which Rousseau lays most stress, namely, the
active participation of every citizen in the exercise of sovereign authority, can be satisfied
only in a small community. It cannot be fulfilled in the large nation states of today where
representative legislatures have taken place of the sovereign assembly. In short, Rousseau
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wrote for a world different from the present when life is complicated by aggressive
nationalism, individualism and continuous demand for legislation. Rousseau objected to the
representative system which has become universal in the 20th century.
• The theory diminishes the importance of Government: Since representative government is
ruled out; and the sovereignty lies with the people, the executive branch becomes merely an
agency to carry out the will of the people; it has the status of a committee having only
delegated powers which can be withdrawn or modified at the will of the master.
(c) What do you understand by mill's statement of 'the oppressive effects of social pressure
to confirm'. Discuss the arguments given by mill in defence of individual freedom even
In case of eccentric and out spoken false opinion?
• Mills holds a very passionate view of freedom of thought and expression. His ideas have
been a source of inspiration for those concerned with civil liberties and individual freedom.
In his book on liberty Mill favoured freedom of action and speech against state and the
pressure of public opinion and tradition.
• He was of the view every individual whether right or wrong must have right to express his/
her opinion. He must not be denied of this right even it is against the majoritarian view or
accepted social norms. The above statement, “The oppressive effects of social pressure to
confirm” has been said in the same context.
• According to Mill Tyranny of majority poses a threat to liberty. He argued that public
opinion is more dangerous than state and officials of the state. He argued that human being
or citizens can not dare to work against public opinion that blocks his intellect and finally
eliminates the power of thought. In the support of breech of speech and action, he said
public opinion and traditional wisdom is not the parameter of value and truth of speech.
Therefore one should be always allowed to speak even against the whole society.
• He further says that even ‘If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one
person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that
one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.’
• While in case of ‘actions’ he clearly distinguishes between ‘self-regarding’ and other regarding
actions and allows state’s interference in other regarding actions, he takes a different stand
in terms of ‘thought and expression’. He says that while thought is without exception self-
regarding, expression of one’s thoughts clearly has consequences for other people.
• However, freedom of expression ‘being almost of as much importance as the liberty of
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thought itself and resting in great part on the same reasons’ it is practically inseparable from
freedom of thought. And so Mill argues for both together. Thus according to him the state
may only interfere with people holding and expressing their views if those views cause harm
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to others and even then, it should only interfere if doing so would be more beneficial than
not doing so. So there should be ‘absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects,
practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological’, however immoral the opinion or
sentiment may seem. Mill gives number of arguments in defence of individual freedom even
in case of eccentric and outspoken false opinion:-
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– Firstly if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can
certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. He further says
that the only reason we have to think that our belief is true is that no one has shown
it is false, although there is every opportunity to make the argument. We cannot be sure
that our belief is true if we prevent opposing beliefs from being expressed and discussed.
He gives the examples of Socrates and Jesus who were put to death by the people who
assumed themselves to be infallible.
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– Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does,
contain a portion of truth; and since the general or public opinion on any subject is
rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the
reminder of truth has any chance of being supplied.
– Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is
suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of
those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension
or feeling of its rational grounds.
– Fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled,
and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a
mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing
the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience. He
says that we shouldn’t silence even false opinions because they help us understand
WHY we believe what we believe, because we want our views to be ‘living truths’ not
‘dead dogmas’.
– He further links it to his action argument and says that if we learn the grounds of our
opinions, then we are more likely to act on them.
– Lastly according to Mill ‘Self-Realisation’ should be the objective of every individual and
it is only through debate and discussions that a person could understand the truth
about others but about himself also. He says that it is important to make sure even the
average person can achieve its true mental potential, enrich and expand his personality
because by only this a society can truly progress.
Hence it is truly said that Mill was one of the greatest prophet of liberty in general and freedom of
thought and expression in particular.
3. (a) Theory of Natural Rights by John Locke with critical emphasis on his idea of Right to
Property.
Theory of natural right
According to Locke, human being has three basic natural rights-
– Right to liberty
– Right to life
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– Right to property OR
• These natural rights are derived from natural law and are limited by it. “The freedom of
man and liberty of acting according to his will is grounded on his having reason, which is
able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he
is left to the freedom of his own will”. “The end of law is not to abolish or to restrain, but
to preserve or enlarge freedom, for in all the states of created beings, where there is no law,
there is no freedom.”
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• According to Locke, right to property is the most important and crucial right. Social contract
has been done to save this right and even state cannot impose without the consent of owner
of property it is so important. Right to property is intimately connected with right to life and
liberty as its necessary consequence. Sometimes Locke sums up all natural rights in the right
to property. But property is not his exclusive concern. Life and liberty are more important.
Man creates property by mixing his labour with the objects of nature. In the beginning, all
things were held in common.
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• But common ownership is not sufficient to provide men with mans of life and satisfy their
needs. Man must mix his Labour with the resources provided by nature to enable him to
make use of them in a more efficacious and profitable way. Since man owns his own person,
his body and limbs, the object with which he mixes his Labour becomes his own property
by right. This is the origin of the famous Labour theory of value common to both the classical
and the Marxian economics.
• According to Locke, Labour not only creates property but it also determines value of property.
He accepted that value of property should be according to proportion of Labour. He said
that 90% of value of property must be determined on the basic of Labour.
• He puts certain limitations on property. First limitation is its utility according to the needs.
In other words, one should not be allowed to accumulate property to destroy, property
should not be left to rotten thus, everyone should possess property according to his use and
needs second limitation is, property cannot be obtained through illegal means. Third limitation
is unlimited right of accumulation of recession actually there this right, accumulate and keep
property.
• Given the implications of the Law of Nature, Locke does not believe that man has an
unlimited right of appropriation. There are three important limitations on ownership of
property. The first, called “Labour limitation”, is that one can appropriate only that much
of common resources with which he has mixed his Labour. The second limitation, the
“sufficiency limitation” enjoins man to appropriate only as much as is required by him and
leave “enough and as good for others.” The third limitation; known as a ‘spoilage limitation’,
requires that man should acquire a thing only if he can make good use of it, since nothing
was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. If one takes more, he “invades his neighbour’s
share” which is prohibited by the law of nature.
• Many critics have found these limitations mostly verbal which are rendered quite otiose in
the later stage of the state of nature, especially after the invention of money. About the
supposed ‘Labour limitation’, Macpherson’s critique is that it was in fact never seriously
entertained by Locke but has been read into his theory by those who have approached it in
the modern tradition of humanist liberalism.
• The introduction of wage Labour, that is the right to purchase the Labour of others on
payment of wages, makes it possible and rightful for a man to appropriate the product of
other men’s Labour. Then Locke also gives a man the right to bequeath his property. This
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is, according to Macpherson, “an indication of his (Locke’s) departure from the medieval
view and acceptance of the bourgeois view expressed so tersely by Hobbes.”
•
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Introduction of money which allows men to exchange goods for money, removes the limitation
imposed by the non-spoilage principle. Macpherson concludes that Locke not only justifies
the right to unequal property but approves of unlimited individual appropriation. Locke is
thus presented as an ideologue of “possessive individualism”, of market economy and the
“dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” He is seen as a typical representative of the “spirit of
capitalism.”
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• Plamenatz’s criticism is based more on logical than ideological grounds. He points out three
major defects in Locke’s theory of property:
• “In the first place, the limits he sets on appropriation, the injunction to let nothing spoil or
go to waste, is either irrelevant or inadequate, for it makes sense only under conditions
which are in fact rare; secondly, the right to bequest, which Locke tactly includes in the right
of property, does not derive either from the right to preserve life and liberty, or from the
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right to set aside for your own, exclusive use what you have mixed your Labour with; and
thirdly, it does not follow, even if your mixing your Labour with something gives you a right
to use it to the exclusion of people who have not mixed their Labour with it, that your being
the first to mix Labour with something gives you the right not to share it with anyone who
subsequently mixes his Labour with it.
• The ideological interpretation of Locke in terms of capitalist economy and the dictatorship
of the bourgeoisie have been challenged by Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, Martin Seliger, Richard
Ashcraft, Hans Aarsleff, John Dunn and others. They argue that Macpherson’s view overlooks
the overriding role of Natural Law and the idea of common good that it implies. Locke is
too much of a medievalist and believer in God to ignore the dictates of Divine Reason and
to espouse unabashedly the cause of the rising capitalist class whose ethos is cut-throat
competition for wealth accumulation resulting in class conflict and misery for the have-nots.
• George H. Sabine is perhaps more to the point when he says: “He left standing the old
theory of natural law with all its emotional connotation and almost religious compulsions,
but he completely changed, without knowing it, the meaning which the term had in writers
like Hooker. Instead of law enjoining the common good of society, Locke set up a body of
innate, indefeasible, individual rights which limit the competence of the community, and
stand as bars to prevent interference with the liberty and property of private persons”.
• Professor John Dunn in his remarkable work The Political Thought of John Locke has offered
an interpretation of Locke which is diametrically opposed to Macpherson’s account.
According to Dunn: “the Lockean social and political theory is to be seen as the elaboration
of Calvinist social values, in the absence of a terrestrial focus of theological authority and in
response to a series of popular challenges”. “Locke saw the rationality of human existence,
a rationality which he spent so much of his life in attempting to vindicate, as dependent
upon the truths of religion”.
• Elaborating further, Dunn observes: “In contrast with the alienated modern conception of
the context of political agency and the instrumental view of its character which dominate
modern political thinking, Locke combines a radically individualist conception of both the
human significance and the rationality of political agency with a wholly non-alienated
conception of its social context. Because this conception of political agency depends for its
structure and stability on a personal relation between the individual human agent and the
deity, it can scarcely be adopted as a basis for grounding modern political identities”.
• In a carefully argued and exhaustive study, A. John Simmons comes to the conclusion that
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Locke “certainly condemns covetousness (contrary to the claims of Strauss, Natural Rights),
and there is no indication that he intends to defend a right of unlimited accumulation. But
neither does he take the use of money and its creation of substantial inequality to be contrary
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to God’s will or to end all legitimate appropriation under the rules of natural property”.
Locke, says Simmons, occupies “the middle ground, calling neither for unfettered accumulation
of property nor for radical redistribution of holdings”.
• Locke’s theory of property seems to oscillate between large accumulation consistent with
sufficient amount of regulation and determination of land ownership by political authority
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in the interest of equitable distribution. Though one cannot attribute to him doctrine of
differential rationality socially and politically favouring the propertied classes, it call hardly
be denied that the whole tenor of his argument goes in favour of those who won large
property as compared with ordinary citizens. A neat summary of Locke’s theory can be
given as follows in the words of Peter Laslett:
• “Even the minutest control of property by political authority can be reconciled with the
doctrine of Two Treatises, and as Professor Viner has pointed out, Locke nowhere complains
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against the complicated regulations of his ‘mercantilist’ age in terms of property rights. If not
complete communism certainly redistributive taxation, perhaps nationalization could be
justified on the principles we have discussed: all that would be necessary is the consent of
the majority of the society, regularly and constitutionally expressed, and such a law would
hold even if all the property owners were in the minority.” Laslett further says that “it is
gratuitous to turn Locke’s doctrine of property into the classic doctrine of the ‘spirit of
capitalism’, whatever that may be”. “In fact, of course, Locke was neither a ‘socialist’ nor
a ‘capitalist’ though it is fascinating to find elements of both attitudes of ours in his property
doctrine, more, perhaps, in what he left out or just failed to say than in the statement itself.
He was not even an advocate of land and land ownership as the basis of political power
to be ‘represented’ in a nation’s counsels. For all his enormous intellectual and political
influence in the 18th Century he was in this respect a barren field for anyone who wished
to justify what once was called Whig obligatory. But he did use his property doctrine to give
continuity to a political society, to join generation to generation”.
• Given that the end of “men’s uniting into common-wealth’s” is the preservation of their
wealth, and preserving their lives, liberty, and well-being in general, Locke can easily imagine
the conditions under which the compact with government is destroyed, and men are justified
in resisting the authority of a civil government, such as a King. When the executive power
of a government devolves into tyranny, such as by dissolving the legislature and therefore
denying the people the ability to make laws for their own preservation, then the resulting
tyrant puts himself into a State of Nature, and specifically into a state of war with the
people, and they then have the same right to self-defence as they had before making a
compact to establish society in the first place.
• In other words, the justification of the authority of the executive component of government
is the protection of the people’s property and well-being, so when such protection is no
longer present, or when the king becomes a tyrant and acts against the interests of the
people, they have a right, if not an outright obligation, to resist his authority. The social
compact can be dissolved and the process to create political society begun anew.
• According to Locke, right of revolution is appeal to heaven. Locke stated that God has given
the right of revolution to human being against injustice, exploitation he also believed that
true remedy of fore without authority is to oppose force to it. John Plamenatz wrote that his
(Locke’s) doctrine of resistance is perhaps the most valuable part of his theory. According
to Laski, Locke formulated not a theory of government, but a theory of revolution. As per
Locke, the right of people to rebel is the best fence against the rebellion.
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• Because Locke did not envision the State of Nature as grimly as did Hobbes, he can imagine
conditions under which one would be better off rejecting a particular civil government and
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returning to the State of Nature, with the aim of constructing a better civil government in
its place. It is therefore both the view of human nature, and the nature of morality itself,
which account for the differences between Hobbes’ and Locke’s views of the social contract.
(b) Describe the features of Sovereignty as per Thomas Hobbes and its major critiques.
Hobbes on Sovereignty
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• Firstly, For Hobbes sovereignty is an undeniable fact of political life; whenever there is civil
or political society, sovereignty must exist.
• In its absence everyone will have the liberty to do as he pleases, and the entire purpose for
which the commonwealth is set up will be lost. Because according to Hobbes, ‘Covenants
without the sword, are but words, and of strength to secure a man at all’.
• Sovereign according to Hobbesian definition essentially lies in the power of determining on
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the behalf of the entire community what should be done to maintain peace and order to
promote their welfare.
• The second fundamental attribute of sovereignty is its absoluteness. The power of the sovereign
is to make laws is not limited by any human authority, superior or inferior. There is no rival
or co-ordinate authority in the commonwealth beside the sovereign.
• It has ultimate power and unfettered discretion and is the source of the laws and also their
sole interpreter; he cannot therefore be subject to them.
• The laws of nature, according to Hobbes, are not laws in the strict sense of term; they are
mere counsels of reason and have no compulsive force.
• The law of God also does not constitute any check upon him for he is the sole interpreter.
• Individual conscience also cannot be pleaded against him, because law is the public conscience
by which man has agreed to be guided.
• All of the above leads us to third important feature of Sovereignty. In the state of nature
there can be no distinction between right and wrong, just and unjust, moral and immoral
and no property rights. These distinctions first come into existence with the establishment
of civil society and the setting up of the sovereign authority. Whatever is in conformity with
the laws made by the sovereign is just and right; whatever is contrary to them is unjust and
wrong. Also the sovereign creates those conditions under which alone moral distinctions
acquire significance and importance. Morality can exist only in a civil society. But since the
sovereign is making the distinction between moral and immoral, the sovereign himself is
above any sort of morality.
• The sovereign is also the creator of the property. What people have in the state of nature
are mere possessions which confer no ownership. Legal property rights with their protection
by society come into existence only with the establishment of sovereign authority. Since
property is the creation if the sovereign, he can take it away whenever he likes in the interest
of the same. Taxation does not require the consent of the people.
• In the fourth place, it may be said that the sovereign is the source of justice and has the
power to make and declare war. He has supreme command of the militia, and determines
what doctrines and opinions are to be permitted and what disallowed. By making the
sovereign the source of justice and describing the judges as lions under the throne, Hobbes
concentrates full executive, legislative and judicial power in the sovereign.
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• In the fifth place attention maybe is drawn to the indivisibility, inseparability and
incommunicability of sovereignty. The sovereign authority cannot dissociate itself of any
attribute of sovereignty without destroying it, nor can it share its exercise with the others.
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The aim of a civil war cannot therefore be to place any restrictions upon its exercise or to
share in it; its aim is to determine who shall possess and exercise it.
Criticisms of the Theory
• Vaughan views: He rejects the theory as ‘pernicious and impossible’. It is condemned as
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pernicious in so far as it leads to despotism, pure and simple, and gives the subjects no
defense against oppressive and tyrannical rule, and reduces “the whole herd to slavery”. It
may be rejected as impossible, because according to it ‘the sole bond of union between the
members of the Leviathan is a common terror, the fear of relapsing into the state of nature.
Between one member and another there is no bond at all. The only cement provided is that
which binds each of them, singly and separately, by sheer terror of the tyrant who stands
above them all.’
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• It has to be admitted that in system of Hobbes the ties which binds members of the
commonwealth together is subjection to the sovereign authority which itself ultimately rests
on force (command over the state militia). It must also be conceded that the entire trend of
his political philosophy is towards absolutism; the Leviathan was written with the purpose
of justifying and defending absolute rule as the only remedy for civil wars which were
ruining England.
• It would be however be wrong to infer from this that there is and can be no liberty under
the leviathan. There is liberty but only such can be enjoyed under the protection of laws. The
Leviathan has no passion for undue interference. According to Hobbes, the laws do not bar
the people from doing voluntary action; their aim is ‘ to direct and keep them in such a
motion , as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires , rashness or indiscretion;
as hedges are set not to stop travelers , but to keep them in the right way”. All that the
sovereign can legitimately demand is the conformity of men’s behavior to his laws. Intellect
and conscience are beyond his reach.
• At the same time, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the sovereign ultimately derives
all his powers and authority from the people, they transfer to him all the their natural rights,
therefore Hobbes thus bases government virtually on the consent of the people; through the
fiction of the contract and idea of the corporation Hobbes may be said unwittingly to express
the idea of self-government, though in a very clumsy manner
Critical Estimate of Hobbes
• On one extreme is the view of C.E. Vaughan that so far as the vital development of political
thought is concerned Leviathan has remained , and deserve to remain , without influence
and without fruit; ‘A fantastic hybrid, incapable of propagating its kind’. On the other
extreme is the view of Sabine that Hobbes ‘is probably the greatest writer on political
philosophy that the English speaking people have produced.’
• The line of reasoning adopted by Professor Vaughan would be fatal to Hobbes’s theory if it
is assumed that Hobbes believed in the historicity and actual existence of the state of nature.
But such an assumption is not necessary. The purpose of Hobbes is not to describe the origin
of state in time; he is interested in analyzing its nature and proving its validity. To argue that
men never lived in a state of nature, and that if they ever lived in such a state, they could
have never formed themselves into a civil society in the manner prescribed by Hobbes, is
altogether irrelevant. Denial of the reality of the state of nature and of the reality of the
contract does not prove Hobbes’s analysis of state and its sovereign wrong.
• Hobbes was not only a materialist; he was also a rationalist. His clear cut rationalism
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shocked political thought out of the obscurities into which it was involved during those days.
By identifying the law of nature with the dictates of reason and giving to the sovereign the
right of interpreting the law of god he compelled his assailants to meet him in the arena of
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fact and reason, and thereby did much to inspire a revival of the scientific attitude towards
political speculation.
(c) Hobbes's argument for an absolute sovereign is novel because he bases the authority
of the sovereign on consent. Explain the role of consent in his account and explain why
he believes that consent based on fear of death is morally binding. Also enumerate the
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major attributes of Hobbesian Sovereignty.

Role of consent
For Hobbes political authority is artificial: in the “natural” condition human beings lack government,
which is an authority created by men. It’s almost invariably true that every human being is capable of
killing any other. Because adults are “equal” in this capacity to threaten one another’s lives, Hobbes
claims there is no natural source of authority to order their lives together. (He is strongly opposing
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arguments that established monarchs have a natural or God-given right to rule over us.)
Thus, as long as human beings have not successfully arranged some form of government, they live
in Hobbes’s state of nature. Unless some effective authority stepped into this state of nature, Hobbes
argues the result is doomed to be deeply awful, nothing less than a state of war. In case of Hobbesian
state of nature, any such authority can only come into existence by mutually and morally binding
arrangement among the individuals. It has to be based on mutual consent since the authority
will only come into existence when all agree to and abide it. Unlike other contract theorists,
Hobbes bases his sovereign as the product of the contract based on consent rather than making
the sovereign itself a party to the contract.
Hobbes provides a series of powerful arguments that suggest it is extremely unlikely that human
beings will live in security and peaceful cooperation without government based on binding contract
among individuals. His most basic argument is threefold.
• He thinks we will compete, violently compete, to secure the basic necessities of life and
perhaps to make other material gains.
• He argues that we will challenge others and fight out of fear (“diffidence”), so as to ensure
our personal safety.
• And he believes that we will seek reputation (“glory”), both for its own sake and for its
protective effects (for example, so that others will be afraid to challenge us).
In Hobbes’s words, “the wickedness of bad men also compels good men to have recourse, for their
own protection, to the virtues of war, which are violence and fraud.” (Underlying this most basic
argument is an important consideration about insecurity.)
Hobbes places great weight on contracts (thus some interpreters see Hobbes as heralding a market
society dominated by contractual exchanges). In particular, he often speaks of “covenants,” by
which he means a contract where one party performs his part of the bargain later than the other. In
the state of nature such agreements aren’t going to work. Only the weakest will have good reason
to perform the second part of a covenant, and then only if the stronger party is standing over them.
Yet a huge amount of human cooperation relies on trust, that others will return their part of the
bargain over time.
How the fear of death does makes this contract morally binding?
• Hobbes’s view the state of nature is quite simple to define. Naturally speaking - that is,
outside of civil society – we have a right to do whatever we think will ensure our self-
preservation. The worst that can happen to us is violent death at the hands of others. If we
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have any rights at all, if (as we might put it) nature has given us any rights whatsoever, then
the first is surely this: the right to prevent violent death befalling us.
•
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But Hobbes says more than this, and it is this point that makes his argument so powerful.
We do not just have a right to ensure our self-preservation: we each have a right to judge
what will ensure our self-preservation. And this is where Hobbes’s picture of humankind
becomes important. Hobbes has given us good reasons to think that human beings rarely
judge wisely. Yet in the state of nature no one is in a position to successfully define what
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good judgment is. Because we’re all insecure, because trust is more-or-less absent, there’s
little chance of our sorting out misunderstandings peacefully, nor can we rely on some
(trusted) third party to decide whose judgment is right. We all have to be judges in our own
causes, and the stakes are very high indeed: life or death.
• He further argues that in the state of nature we each have a right to all things, “even to one
another’s body’ (Leviathan). Hobbes is dramatizing his point, but the core is defensible. If I
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judge that I need such and such - an object, another person’s Labour, another person’s death
- to ensure my continued existence, then in the state of nature, there is no agreed authority
to decide whether I’m right or wrong. We can soften suppose that the state of nature would
be a much nicer place, if only we were to picture human beings with some basic moral ideas.
But this is naïve: unless people share the same moral ideas, not just at the level of general
principles but also at the level of individual judgment, then the challenge Hobbes poses remains
unsolved: human beings who lack some shared authority are almost certain to fall into
dangerous and deadly conflict.
• In the end, though, whatever account of the state of nature and its (a) morality we attribute
to Hobbes, we must remember that it is meant to function as a powerful and decisive threat:
if we do not heed Hobbes’s teachings and fail to respect existing political authority, then the
natural condition and its horrors of war and death await us.
• Hobbes thinks the state of nature is something we ought to avoid, at any cost accept our own
self-preservation there are two basic ways of interpreting Hobbes here. It might be a counsel
of prudence: avoid the state of nature, if you’re concerned to avoid violent death. In this case
Hobbes’s advice only applies to us (in) if we agree that violent death is what we should fear
most and should therefore avoid; and (ii) if we agree with Hobbes that only an unaccountable
sovereign stands between human beings and the state of nature.
Major attributes of Hobbesian Sovereignty
• Firstly, For Hobbes sovereignty is an undeniable fact of political life; whenever there is civil
or political society, sovereignty must exist.
• In its absence everyone will have the liberty to do as he pleases, and the entire purpose for
which the commonwealth is set up will be lost. Because according to Hobbes, ‘Covenants
without the sword, are but words, and of strength to secure a man at all’.
• Sovereign according to Hobbesian definition essentially lies in the power of determining on
the behalf of the entire community what should be done to maintain peace and order to
promote their welfare.
• The second fundamental attribute of sovereignty is its absoluteness. The power of the sovereign
is to make laws is not limited by any human authority, superior or inferior. There is no rival
or co-ordinate authority in the commonwealth beside the sovereign.
• It has ultimate power and unfettered discretion and is the source of the laws and also their
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sole interpreter; he cannot therefore be subject to them.
• The laws of nature, according to Hobbes, are not laws in the strict sense of term; they are
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mere counsels of reason and have no compulsive force.
• The law of God also does not constitute any check upon him for he is the sole interpreter.
• Individual conscience also cannot be pleaded against him, because law is the public conscience
by which man has agreed to be guided.
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• All of the above leads us to third important feature of Sovereignty. In the state of nature
there can be no distinction between right and wrong, just and unjust, moral and immoral
and no property rights. These distinctions first come into existence with the establishment
of civil society and the setting up of the sovereign authority. Whatever is in conformity with
the laws made by the sovereign is just and right; whatever is contrary to them is unjust and
wrong. Also the sovereign creates those conditions under which alone moral distinctions
acquire significance and importance. Morality can exist only in a civil society. But since the
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sovereign is making the distinction between moral and immoral, the sovereign himself is
above any sort of morality.
• The sovereign is also the creator of the property. What people have in the state of nature
are mere possessions which confer no ownership. Legal property rights with their protection
by society come into existence only with the establishment of sovereign authority. Since
property is the creation if the sovereign, he can take it away whenever he likes in the interest
of the same. Taxation does not require the consent of the people.
• In the fourth place, it may be said that the sovereign is the source of justice and has the
power to make and declare war. He has supreme command of the militia, and determines
what doctrines and opinions are to be permitted and what disallowed. By making the
sovereign the source of justice and describing the judges as lions under the throne, Hobbes
concentrates full executive, legislative and judicial power in the sovereign.
• In the fifth place attention maybe is drawn to the indivisibility, inseparability and
incommunicability of sovereignty. The sovereign authority cannot dissociate itself of any
attribute of sovereignty without destroying it, nor can it share its exercise with the others.
The aim of a civil war cannot therefore be to place any restrictions upon its exercise or to
share in it; its aim is to determine who shall possess and exercise it.
4. (a) Hanna Arendt's Notion of 'Vita Contemplative' and 'Vita Activa'
• In The Human Condition Arendt argues for a tripartite division between the human activities
of labor, work, and action. Moreover, she arranges these activities in an ascending hierarchy
of importance, and identifies the overturning of this hierarchy as central to the eclipse of
political freedom and responsibility which, for her, has come to characterize the modern age.
• The Human Condition is fundamentally concerned with the problem of reasserting the
politics as a valuable ream of human action, praxis, and the world of appearances. Arendt
argues that the Western philosophical tradition has devalued the world of human action
which attends to appearances (the vita active), subordinating it to the life of contemplation
which concerns itself with essences and the eternal (the vita contemplativa). The prime
culprit is Plato, whose metaphysics subordinates action and appearances to the eternal
realm of the Ideas. The allegory of The Cave in The Republic begins the tradition of political
philosophy; here Plato describes the world of human affairs in terms of shadows and darkness,
and instructs those who aspire to truth to turn away from it in favor of the “clear sky of
eternal ideas.”
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• The realm of action and appearance (including the political) is subordinated to and becomes
instrumental for the ends of the Ideas as revealed to the philosopher who lives the bios
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theôretikos. In The Human Condition and subsequent works, the task Arendt set herself is
to save action and appearance, and with it the common life of the political and the values
of opinion, from the depredations of the philosophers. By systematically elaborating what
this vita activa might be said to entail, she hopes to reinstate the life of public and political
action to apex of human goods and goals.
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• For Arendt, action is one of the fundamental categories of the human condition and constitutes
the highest realization of the vita activa. Arendt analyses the vita activa via three categories
which correspond to the three fundamental activities of our being-in-the-world: labour,
work, and action. Labour is the activity which is tied to the human condition of life, work
the activity which is tied to the condition of worldliness, and action the activity tied to the
condition of plurality.
• For Arendt each activity is autonomous, in the sense of having its own distinctive principles
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and of being judged by different criteria. Labour is judged by its ability to sustain human
life, to cater to our biological needs of consumption and reproduction, work is judged by its
ability to build and maintain a world fit for human use, and action is judged by its ability
to disclose the identity of the agent, to affirm the reality of the world, and to actualize our
capacity for freedom.
• Although Arendt considers the three activities of labour, work and action equally necessary
to a complete human life, in the sense that each contributes in its distinctive way to the
realization of our human capacities, it is clear from her writings that she takes action to be
the differentia specifica of human beings, that which distinguishes them from both the life
of animals (who are similar to us insofar as they need to labour to sustain and reproduce
themselves) and the life of the goods (with whom we share, intermittently, the activity of
contemplation).
• In this respect the categories of labour and work, while significant in themselves, must be
seen as counterpoints to the category of action, helping to differentiate and highlight the
place of action within the order of the vita activa.Arendt argues that the Western philosophical
tradition has devalued the world of human action which attends to appearances (the vita
activa), subordinating it to the life of contemplation which concerns itself with essences and
the eternal (the vita contemplativa).
(b) Comparison of Aristotle and Marx in terms of 'Revolution'.
• Aristotle advanced his theory of revolution in the context of ancient Greek city-states when
household- centred activity was the predominant mode of production. On the other hand,
Marx put forward his theory in an advanced stage of industrial production when conflict
between capitalist and workers was brewing up. Aristotle saw revolution as a threat to
political stability and wanted to prevent it for the smooth running of society. On the contrary,
Marx saw revolution as a vehicle for progress and encouraged it to stop the exploitation of
the working class.
• According to historical materialism as propounded by Marx and Engels, forces of production
develop slowly but at one stage they become a fetter on the existing relations of production.
When their pressure become unbearable, the old relations of production give way, as an
embankment is swept away by flood. This process gives rise to a new set of social relations.
That is how a revolution takes place. Revolution is ‘the indispensable midwife of social
change’. Each new epoch of social history is therefore a product of revolution. The capitalist
system was established by a revolutionary overthrow of the feudal system, as exemplified by
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the French revolution. But as the capitalist system itself had become a fetter on the new
forces of production, this was bound to be overthrown by the new revolutionary class- the
working class –In a revolution. OR
• In short, Aristotle as a conservative opposed revolution, but Marx as a radical strongly
supported it. Both agreed that social inequality acted as a spur to revolution. Aristotle
wanted to maintain inequality; he only wanted to prevent the feeling of injustice arising
from such a state of affairs. Marx, on the other hand, exhorted the oppressed classes to rise
against this inequality and establish a new social order to put an end to their exploitation.
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(c) Popper says “I believe that Plato was led, by his distrust of the common man, and by
his ethical collectivism, to approve of [political] violence.” How far do you think Karl
Popper was justified in his criticism of Plato? Also critically analyze the Scheme of
Education devised by Plato?
• Professor Popper who has launched the bitterest attack on Plato in his book the open society
and its Enemies. Vol 1. He says that the political programme of Plato’s is totalitarian because
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it vests ‘the monopoly of things like military virtues and training ‘in the ruling class and
excludes the producing classes completely from any participation in political activities. Popper
regards Plato as a totalitarian because the latter identifies ‘justice with the principles of class
rule and class privilege’; because Plato’s principles that every class should attend to its own
business is interpreted to mean’ briefly and bluntly’ that the state is just if the ruler rules,
if the worker works and if the slave serves’.
Justification of Popper’s criticism
• Popper finds further justification for his charge in the fact that by Justice Plato does not
mean anything similar to what we generally understand by the term in current parlance.
There is no reference in his theory to anything like
– An equal distribution of the burden of citizenship,
– equal treatment of the citizens before the law provided , of course that
– the laws themselves neither favour nor disfavour individual citizens or groups or classes
– impartiality of courts of justice
– an equal share in the advantage which their membership of the state may offer to the
citizen
• Pluto subordinates the individual to the state with the fact that in his scheme the individual
has meaning and significance only in so far as he performs some functions in the state. The
members of the upper two classes are not allowed to enjoy family life; they are denied the
pleasures of the senses. They have to give up all their private interests for the sake of the
state. The members of the producing class are denied all political power, but are given the
right to enjoy life and earn wealth. Every member of the state is thus called upon to live for
the state and not for him.
• He was no democrat either, he took little note of the producers who always form the great
majority of the population in every state.
Defence of Plato against Popper’s criticism
• Plato does not regard the individual as an isolated unit whose good may be opposed to and
independent of the society. His individual is a part of a whole; his life acquires value and
significance only in relation to the whole. The rights which he can demand and which
society should secure to him are those conditions of life which enable him to discharge his
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function as a part of the whole and contribute to its welfare. The only right in which Plato
is interested is the right which enables one to perform one’s duties; it covers all other rights.
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This conception does not destroy the individuality of the individual; on the contrary, it
deepens it.
• For Plato justice and injustice are conditions of states of human psyche expressing themselves
in the corresponding conditions of the psyche of the society. Very naturally therefore an
enquiry into the just life of the individual becomes an enquiry into order and disorder in
society. Since disorder in society can destroy the human soul, nothing can be objects of
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greater concern for the individual, than to see that the polis or state is ruled by the men with
well-ordered souls.
• The rulers are not united together by the pursuit of any common interest-economic, dynastic
or personal. There are no class interests which they are expected to promote; their only
concern is the welfare of the polis. Far from enjoying any privileges, they are denied what
the common man cherishes the most-the pleasures of the family and amassing wealth.
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Whatever else the rule of the philosopher’s kin may be it is certainly not rule by a privileged
class.
• In the last place, we may point out that in as much as the fundamental purpose of Plato
was to delineate an ideal state in which the individual could fulfil himself in the highest
sense of the term, he could not think of subordinating the individual of the state ; this runs
counter to his purpose. It should be always borne in mind that for Plato the state is not in
end in itself; it exists for the perfection of the individual. Its purpose is the production of
noble characters, According to Plato the worth of a state should be measured by the type
of character it produces in its citizens; by the virtue of its rulers, the courage of its warriors
and the temperance of its producers and not by its size, wealth or army.
Critical Analysis of his Education Scheme
It is based upon the principle of ‘equal opportunity for all’. The girls are also entitled to get the
education so that they may also employ their capabilities in the service of the society. The education
aims at all round development of human personality and the education is imparted in stages
according to the worth and age of the individual. It includes both theoretical and practical
knowledge. It is a curious mixture of platonic idealism and realism based upon the necessities of
real life.
Defects
• Plato’s system of education is mainly meant for administrators and rulers.
• His aim is to produce an ideal philosopher and not a man of action. His guardians are
subjected to a life of military monasticism.
• He extends the period of thirty five years which becomes very expensive and hazardous.
After passing through such a long process of education it will be difficult for the guardians
to maintain their efficiency as desired by Plato.
• The government of Plato’s ideal state must be aristocratic in nature. The modern democrat
does not accept the Platonic conception that the function of government should be entrusted
exclusively to a small class distinguished from the others by superiority in virtue; he does not
concede that that government is a whole time job and demands abilities of a peculiar kind
which belong to a particular social class. He therefore rejects the whole theory of philosopher
kings as issuing in totalitarianism. According to Popper, Plato’s philosopher king is placed
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as high above the common man as to become god like if not divine.
• Plato assumes that philosopher’s natures can be found only among the ranks of the gentry
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and not among the peasants and artisans. This is why he excluded the class of producers
of wealth which is the largest in the state from the scheme of education. But it is not doubt
true that he admits that sometimes a man of guardian class nature may be born of parents
of producer class but there is no way of discovering such men and shifting them from the
rest belonging to the producing class.
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SECTION B
5. (a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci

There are two main contemporary contributions to a theory of intellectuals; and considerable
discussion on their changed role in present-day society. The first theory derives from Antonio
Gramsci’s distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘organic ‘intellectuals. As above, ‘traditional’
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intellectuals are thought to be disinterested and to rise in the name of reason and truth above
sectarian or topical interests. ‘Organic’ intellectuals, on the other hand, speak for the interests of a
specific class. Moreover, traditional intellectuals are bound to the institutions of the previous
hegemonic order while organic intellectuals seek to win consent to counter-hegemonic ideas and
ambitions. Gramsci is interested in the formation of intellectuals who will be organic to the interests
of the working class (and who therefore find their place within the revolutionary party). If traditional
intellectuals are thought to be in fact ‘interested’ on behalf of a class, then the distinction as framed
disappears and intellectuals of both types can be seen as the rival representatives (the mobilizers,
internal critics) of sectional interests in a class society.
(b) Aristotle's idea of equality
The principle of Equality has two main aspects, the first of which is exhibited in the act of “distributing
“certain matters between two or more persons, or “adjusting” these matters to their proper ratios.
This is called “distributive justice”, the principle of which demands that only equals be treated
equally and which always is “proportionate Equality,” that is to say, a form of Justice which allots
burdens according to the individual’s ability to shoulder them and accords support in amounts
which vary with the needs of each individual. The other aspect of the principle of Equality is
thesocalled “commutative Justice” which in contradiction to “distributive Justice” ignores the
differences in rank and worthiness of the persons involved, being merely concerned with the
proportionate ratio between two “commensurable goods” such as labour and wage, damage and
recovery. The fundamental difference between “distributive Justice” and “commutative Justice” is
to be discovered in the distinction between Equality with regard to the persons involved and Equality
without regard to the person and his rank; between the notion that everyone should have his due
according to his rank and worth and the notion that the same treatment applies to all persons
irrespective of their rank or worth. This obvious dualism in the administration of Justice merely
indicates two separate processes in the realization of the principle of Equality. The choice of the
kind of Justice to be applied in each case, in other words, the question whether “distributive Justice”
or “commutative Justice” should govern a case, will be determined, in the last analysis, by the
nature of the facts and circumstances underlying this case
(c) Critique of General will by Rousseau
• The Tyranny of Majority: it is usually said that though the objective of Rousseau was to
secure individual liberty, his theory became one of the strongest defences of majority tyranny.
The individual who does not see eye to eye with the majority can be made to submit to the
view of the latter, in the oft quoted words of Rousseau he can ‘be forced to be free’. There
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seems to be no escape or protection to those who dissent from the view of the majority.
• Encouragement to Individualism: He has been charged equally often of encouraging an
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individualism that will end in anarchy. This anomaly can be explained in the words of
Professor Wright: “the book is neither for the individualist or absolutist. In the struggle
between the state and individual which has been the torment of political philosophy from
Aristotle down, it offers a proposal of peace. Real liberty is made possible by the State; and
the greater is the power with which State is armed, the more secure will be the liberty
individual can enjoy in it. Rousseau realised this truth and provides for both in his theory.it
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is failure to understand the interdependence of the two that gives rise to such lopsided
criticism
• Misuse of the Theory of General Will: The fact that the theory of General will can be and
has been sued to justify suppression of individual liberty cannot be denied. It has got to be
admitted that it can be and has been converted into a powerful defence of the right of the
majority to force its views on minority. But the answer is that such abuse is not a legitimate
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conclusion from a theory of General will. Those who misuse it forget that the General will
has a basis in morality and justice. Since the state of Rousseau is a moral state –it must be
remembered that he describes the civil society resulting from the Social Compact as a moral
person…there can be no question of the individual being made to suffer as a result of
dependence upon it.
• General Will’s application to Practice is limited: The real defect inherent in Rousseau’s
theory of General Will may be said to lie in the fact that its application in practice is very
limited. The condition for its realization in which Rousseau lays most stress, namely, the
active participation of every citizen in the exercise of sovereign authority, can be satisfied
only in a small community. It cannot be fulfilled in the large nation states of today where
representative legislatures have taken place of the sovereign assembly. In short, Rousseau
wrote for a world different from the present when life is complicated by aggressive
nationalism, individualism and continuous demand for legislation. Rousseau objected to the
representative system which has become universal in the 20th century.
• The theory diminishes the importance of Government: Since representative government is
ruled out; and the sovereignty lies with the people, the executive branch becomes merely an
agency to carry out the will of the people; it has the status of a committee having only
delegated powers which can be withdrawn or modified at the will of the master.
(d) Basic principles of Utilitarianism by Bentham
• Psychological Hedonism: Man weighs everything in terms of pleasure and pain. He always
seeks pleasure. What gives him pleasure is good and what pains him is bad.
• Pragmatism: Not idealism but fruits of action matter for the citizens. Davidson said that ‘We
added to practical efforts to ameliorate the conditions of human life on national principles,
and to rise the masses through effective state legislation.’
• Individualism: Utilitarian’s were liberals. Human beings have definite values. Their freedom
consists in being free from everything but law. Law is essential for moral and material
welfare of the subjects. Thus, utilitarian’s supported individualism.
• Moral standpoint: Utilitarian’s believed in moral values and judged everything from that
viewpoint. It was most essential that the people should have high moral character and
maximum moral development.1
• Inductive and Experimental Methods: Utilitarian’s used inductive and experimental methods
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of study. They were practical in their approach to every problem. They expounded their
theories in the light of what was practical and actually happening in our day-do-day life.
•
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Rejection of Laissez Faire: In so far as Laissez Faire is concerned the utilitarian’s came to
the conclusion that it was not in the collective interest of the society. Maxey has said
‘Asindustrialisation proceeded, utilitarian’sfound themselves increase convinced of the enlarged
governmental interference in the domain of the property and contract.’
• Men and Society Inseparable: Utilitarian’s believed that men and society are inseparable.
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They stressed the idea that man is an integral parts of the society. Without society it shall
not be possible for him to lead a happy and joyous life.
• Associations: Utilitarianism is close to associations. Associations is meant the attempt to
explain philosophically the nature and formation of knowledge and find out units for sensation
and exposition of principles according to which this formation is affected.’
• Greatest good of the greatest number: Utilitarian’s stood for the greatest good of the
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greatest number of the people. This could be obtained by promoting moral development of
the people by looking after their progress and by uplifting them socially, economically and
culturally and even mentally, morally and physically.
• Government a necessary evil: Utilitarian’s believed that government was a necessary evil.
It must be respected because without state authority man cannot make uninterrupted progress.
State is essential for checking hindrances to the normal development and progress of the
people.
• Maximum happiness and maximum number: The Utilitarian’s believed in the idea of
happiness of maximum number of people. The existence of state could only be justified on
how and to what extent the state promoted happiness.
• Concept of Utility: It is the principle ‘which approves or disapproves of every action
whatsoever, according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question or what is the same thing, to promote
or to oppose that happiness.’ An everlasting pleasure should be certain, durable and pure
and should extent to all. Pleasure can be derived from wealth, health, power or benevolence,
whereas backwardness, ill repute etc., can be the causes of pain. Causes of pain and pleasure
can be simply as well as complex but it is difficult to generalise them because these differs
from individual to individual.
• State is not natural: It is a product of man’s desire to satisfy his needs. The state should
protect natural rights of the people.
• Synthesis of ethics and politics: Utilitarian’s tried to combine ethics with politics. They felt
that a state could not be devote of ethical consideration. They believed that the state was not
an end in itself but only means to an end.
(e) Hannah Arendt on Revolution
• From the historical-philosophical treatment of the political in The Human Condition, it
might appear that for Arendt an authentic politics (as freedom of action, public deliberation
and disclosure) has been decisively lost in the modern era. Yet in her next major work, On
Revolution (1961) she takes her rethinking of political concepts and applies them to the
modern era, with ambivalent results.
• Arendt takes issue with both liberal and Marxist interpretations of modern political revolutions
(such as the French and American). Against liberals, the disputes the claim that these
revolutions were primarily concerned with the establishment of a limited government that
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would make space for individual liberty beyond the reach of the state.
• Against Marxist interpretations of the French Revolution, she disputes the claim that it was
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driven by the “social question,” a popular attempt to overcome poverty and exclusion by the
many against the few who monopolized wealth in the ancient regime.
• Rather, Arendt claims, what distinguishes these modern revolutions is that they exhibit the
exercise of fundamental political capacities - that of individuals acting together, on the basis
of their mutually agreed common purposes, in order to establish a tangible public space of
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freedom.
• Yet Arendt sees both the French and American revolutions as ultimately failing to establish
a perjuring political space in which the on-going activities of shared deliberation, decision
and coordinated action could be exercised. In the case of the French Revolution, the
subordination of political freedom to matters of managing welfare (the “social question”)
reduces political institutions to administering the distribution of goods and resources.
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• The American Revolution evaded this fate, and by means of the Constitution managed to
found a political society on the basis of comment assent. Yet she saw it only as a partial and
limited success. America failed to create an institutional space in which citizens could
participate in government, in which they could exercise in common those capacities of free
expression, persuasion and judgement that defined political existence.
• The average citizen, while protected from arbitrary exercise of authority by constitutional
checks and balances, was no longer a participant “in judgement and authority,” and so
became denied the possibility of exercising his/her political capacities.
6. (a) Revolution from above' is considered to be a paradigm shift in Marxist philosophy',
Analyse the above statement with special reference to theorist of superstructure.
• Before Antonio Gramsci, the Marxian philosophy argued that the economic order of the
society constituted the base and the political, social and cultural order constituted the super
structure. And the nature of the super structure depended on the nature of the economic
base therefore any revolution if has to be successful has to begin with the proletariat taking
control over the means of production.
• Gramsci did not accept this position and said that structure of legitimation like family,
school, church etc. within the bourgeois society manufacture consent and prevent any
challenge to the authority of the bourgeois. Therefore the strategy of communist movement
should not be confined to the overthrow of the capitalist class but it should make a dent in
the value system that sustains the capitalist rule.
• He calls for fresh efforts to be made for inculcating the socialist values in the minds of the
people and in order to achieve this the revolutionaries must infiltrate the autonomous
institutions of the civil society i.e. the superstructure and create a new mass consciousness
informed by the socialist value system, or as he aptly called it “the revolution from above”.
• In modern industrial capitalist societies it has become a necessary condition for the success
of the communist revolution overall. ThusGramsci, the theorist of superstructure the political
and practical implications of Gramsci’s ideas were far-reaching because he warned of the
limited possibilities of direct revolutionary struggle for control of the means of production.
• Drawing from Machiavelli, he argues that ‘The Modern Prince’ – the revolutionary party –
is the force that will allow the working-class to develop organic intellectuals and an alternative
hegemony within civil society. For Gramsci, the complex nature of modern civil society
means that a ‘war of position’, carried out by revolutionaries through political agitation, the
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trade unions, advancement of proletarian culture, and other ways to create an opposing civil
society was necessary alongside a ‘war of manoeuvre’ — a direct revolution – in order to
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have a successful revolution without a danger of a counter-revolution or degeneration.
(b) Marx borrows heavily from both Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism.
Explain with a detailed elaboration of both methods.
Dialectical Materialism
• Dialectical materialism is the scientific methodology developed by Marx and Engels for the
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interpretation of history. Here, Marx has borrowed heavily from his predecessors, particularly,
the German philosopher Hegel. Dialectics is a very old methodology, employed to discover
truth by exposing contradictions, through a clash of opposite ideas. Hegel refined it by
developing the trilogy of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. It is popularly known as the
Dialectical Triad. Progress or growth takes place through the dialectical process. At every
stage of growth, it is characterized by contradictions.
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• These contradictions induce further changes, progress, and development. The thesis is
challenged by its anti-thesis. Both contain elements of truth and falsehood. Truth is permanent,
but falsehood is transitory. In the ensuing conflict of the thesis and the anti-thesis, the truth
remains, but the false elements are destroyed. These false elements constitute contradictions.
The true elements of both the thesis and the anti-thesis are fused together in a synthesis. This
evolved synthesis during the course of time becomes a thesis and so, it is again challenged
by its opposite anti-thesis, which again results in a synthesis. This process of thesis, anti-
thesis, and synthesis continues until the stage of perfection is reached.
• In this evolutionary process, a stage will come, when there will be no false elements. These
will be destroyed at different stages of evolution. Ultimately, only the truth remains, because
it is never destroyed. It will constitute the perfect stage and there will be no contradictions
and so, there will be no further growth. The dialectical process will come to an end after
arriving at the perfect truth. It is the contradictions, which move the dialectical process and
a complete elimination of contradictions marks the end of the dialectical process itself.
• For materialism, Marx is highly indebted to the French school of materialism, mainly the
French materialist thinker Ludwig Feuerbach. It is the matter, which is the ultimate reality
and not the idea. The latter is a reflection of the former. How we earn our bread determines
our ideas. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but, on the
contrary, it is their social existence that determines their consciousness.
• Marx has observed that “Hegel’s dialectics was standing on its head and I have put it on
its feet”. Hegel has developed dialectical idealism. For him, it is the idea, which ultimately
matters. Idea lies in the base or the sub-structure, which determines everything in the
superstructure. Society, polity, economy are in this superstructure which is shaped by the
prevalent dominant ideas of the age. Ultimately it is the idea, which matters, and the other
things are only its reflection.
• Marx replaced idea with matter. According to Marx, the material or the economic forces are
in the substructure and the idea is a part of the superstructure. Idea is the reflection of
material forces. The economic forces determine the idea and not vice- versa. Thus, Marx has
reversed the position of idea and matter. This is the reason that he claims that “in Hegel it
was upside down and I have corrected it”.
• The base or the substructure consists of the forces of production and the relations of production.
These two together constitute the mode of production. When there is a change in the forces
of production because of development in technology, it brings changes in the relations of
production. Thus, a change in the mode of production brings a corresponding change in the
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superstructure. Society, polity, religion, morals, values, norms, etc. are a part of the
superstructure and shaped by the mode of production.
Historical Materialism
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• Historical materialism is the application of dialectical materialism to the interpretation of
history. It is the economic interpretation of world history by applying the Marxian methodology
of dialectical materialism. The world history has been divided into four stages: primitive
communism, the slavery system, feudalism and capitalism.
• Primitive communism refers to the earliest part of human history. It was a property less,
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exploitation less, classless and stateless society. Means of production were backward, because
technology was undeveloped. The community owned the means of production. They were
not under private ownership and so there was no exploitation. Stone made hunting weapons,
the fishing net and hooks were the means of production. The entire community owned
these. Production was limited and meant for self-consumption.
• There was no surplus production and so there was no private property. Since there was no
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private property, there was no exploitation. Since there was no exploitation, there was no class
division. Since there was no class division, there was no class struggle. Since there was no class
struggle, there was no state. It was, thus, a communist society, but of a primitive type. Though
life was difficult, it was characterized by the absence of exploitation, conflict and struggle.
• Technology is not static; it evolves continuously. Technological development results in the
improvement of production. This leads to surplus production, which results in the emergence
of private property. Means of production are now not under the community, but private
ownership. Society is, thus, divided into property owning and property less classes. By virtue
of the ownership of the means of production, the property owning class exploits the property
less class. Class division in society and exploitation lead to class struggle.
• Political Ideologies owning class creates an institution called the state to suppress the dissent
of the dependent class, that is the property less class. Thus, the state is a class instrument
and a coercive institution. It protects the interests of its creator that is the property owning
class.
• In the beginning, this society is divided into masters and slaves. Masters are the haves and
the slaves are the have notes. The slaves carry out all the production work. The masters live
on the labor of slaves. They exploit the slaves and whenever the slaves resent, the state
comes to the rescue of the masters. Thus, the state serves the interests of the master class.
It uses its coercive powers to suppress the voice of the slaves.
• The slave system is succeeded by feudalism. Technological development leads to changes in
the means of production and this brings about corresponding changes in the relations of
production and the superstructure. The slave system is replaced by the feudal mode of
production and it is reflected in the society, polity, morality and the value system. The
division of society into feudal lords and peasants characterizes feudalism. The feudal lords
own the means of production, that is land, but the peasants carry out the production work.
By virtue of ownership of the land, the feudal lords get a huge share of the produce without
doing anything.
• Thus, the feudal lords are like parasites, who thrive on the labor of peasants. Feudal lords
exploit the peasants and if the peasants ever resist their exploitation, their resistance is
ruthlessly crushed by the state, which protects and serves the interests of the feudal lords.
The peasants are a dependent and exploited class, whereas the lords are a dominant and
exploiting class.
• Capitalism succeeds feudalism. Technological development continues and so there is change
in the forces of production, which leads to a mismatch between the forces of production and
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the relations of production, which is resolved through a bourgeois revolution. Thus the
contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production is resolved.
The feudal mode of production is replaced by the capitalist mode of production.
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• owns the means of production, but the proletariat class carries out the production. Proletariats
are the industrial workers. They sell their labor in lieu of meagre wages. It is usually a
subsistence wage, which is sufficient only to support them and their families, so that an
uninterrupted supply of labor force can be maintained. Production is not for consumption
by the self, but for profit. The desire to maximize profit leads to a reduction in wages and
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a rise in working hours. This further deteriorates the lot of the working class, which is
eventually pushed into a situation, where it has nothing to lose except its chains. This paves
the way for the proletariat revolution.
(c) "Since the ruler is outside the group, he is above the morality to be enforced within
group". Discuss the significance of this statement in context of Machiavelli's thoughts
on morality and its relationship with state survival.
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• Prior to Machiavelli almost all the political thinkers had held the opinion that state had an
ethical end and that its aim was to make man happy and good. Machiavelli broke away
from this tradition of the past. Machiavelli’s theory of moral indifference is based on his
study of Church in Italy. He levels two main charges on the Church. First, he states that the
Italians have become “irreligious and bad” because of the “evil example of the court of
Rome”. The second and more serious accusation is that of disunity which the Church has
caused in the country of the philosopher. He never hesitates to say that the sole cause of
Italian political disunity is the Church. It was but natural that Machiavelli should have no
place for either morality or the religion in his political philosophy.
• Machiavelli said that the state was not a means to an end. It was an end in itself. He ignores
the issue of the end of the state in extra political (ethical, religious, cultural) terms. He
assumes that power is an end in itself and he confines his inquiries into the means that are
best suited to acquire, retain, and expand power. The end justified everything.
• Machiavelli is not against the religion itself. He says that the right kind of religion can be of
great value in creating stability in the state. Religion provides a sanction without which
oaths may be useless and it may increase loyalty and unity. Machiavelli’s judgment of
religion is strictly utilitarian. He is concerned with “truth” and with the salvation of souls.
A religion is good if it supports the state and contributes to state ends. He is against Christianity
which, according to him, has divided the Italians.
• Machiavelli, therefore, separates ethics from politics. Statecraft, according to him constitutes
a value system its own which is different from that of ethics and religion. What is evil from
the viewpoint of morality and religion may, therefore, be good from the viewpoint of the
reason of the state if it serves to acquire, retain or expand power. Machiavelli reduces good
and evil from absolute to relative categories and it depends upon the basic assumption of
a system of values whether a particular action is good or bad. If the basic assumption or
objective of conduct is friendship, service, fellowship, justice, or God, the individual action
will be judged good or bad to the extent it agrees with or deviates from such assumption
and goals. If as for the ruler, the basic assumption is power, the decision as to whether a
particular action is good or, bad will depend on the extent to which it furthers the gain
retention and growth of power.
• Machiavelli does not deny moral principles. He says that it is most praise-worthy for a prince
to be good, nevertheless one who wishes to maintain his authority must be ready to lay aside
his goodness at any moment and in general, to employ it or not according to the circumstance.
Furthermore, a prince must appear all sincerity, all uprightness, all humanity, all religion,
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but he must have his mind so disciplined that when it is necessary to save the state he acts
regardless of all these. It follows that Machiavelli makes ethics subservient to politics. He
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says that c a prudent ruler can turn the course of ethics to advantage of the state. In his own
words “When the safety of our country in absolutely at stake, there needs no question of
what is just or unjust, merciful, glorious or shameful. That course alone is to be taken which
may save our country and maintain independence”.
• It is to be noted that Machiavelli presents a double standard of morality, one for the ruler
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and another for the ruled. The first standard is judged by success in increasing his powers
for which even cruelty and murder are sanctioned by Machiavelli. The second standard is
judged by the strength which this rulers’ conduct imparts to the social group. “Since the
ruler is outside the group, he is above the morality to be enforced within group”.
• Machiavelli holds that the interests of the state are different from those of the individual. An
individual acts for himself whereas the state acts for all. Hence the same principle of conduct
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cannot be applied to the individual and the ruler who administers the state. An individual
is bound to keep faith but ruler is not bound to keep faith if it goes against the interests or
integrity of the state. It is always wrong for the individual to tell lies, deceive others or kill
another individual. However it is good and necessary for the ruler to tell lies, deceive others
and kill others if the interests of the state so demand. Despite all this, Machiavelli favour a
gentle rule wherever possible and the use of severity only in, moderation.
• It is to be observed that Machiavelli never praises immorality for its own sake. It is sanctioned
to gain an end. He never doubted that moral corruption in a people made good government
impossible. What he did was a separation of ethics from politics. His basic attitude is not the
rejection of the corrupt political institutions, religious and moral beliefs. He neither assumes
that there are no values in this world nor does he wish to create a world in which all values
would be destroyed. He is aware that civilization implies some sort of values. His morality,
therefore, implies not the denial of moral values in all situations but the affirmation that, in
the specific situation of Statesman, the rules of power have priority over those of ethics and
morality.
• What Machiavelli wants to emphasize is that political as its own morality which must be
taken into consideration while dealing with political issues. It is mainly for this reason that
he is called “unmoral or un-religious rather than immoral or irreligious in his politics”.
7. (a) Hobbes starts with Individualism and liberalism but ended with totalitarianism.
• Absolutism and individualism are two significant political ideas which find an important
place in Hobbes’s scheme of things. There is, on the one hand, theory of sovereignty which
makes the sovereign of Hobbes in all respects. Hobbes has been regarded as the first exponent
of the theory of the absolute powers of the sovereign. Philosophers like Bodin, who preceded
him, put certain veritable limitations on powers if the sovereign. It was destined for Hobbes
to make his sovereign absolute and limitless, and supreme and unrestrained from all sides.
As this concept of sovereignty proved to be a revolutionary and transformational theory of
its times, the people ignored, in its dust and turmoil, that the philosophy of absolutism of
the sovereign was derived from his individualism, which was pure and simple.
• At the same time, it was a controversial theory. His critics failed to analyze that he started
with the individual and ended with the individual. The security of the individual is the pivot
around which all his other political philosophy, either before or after the institutionalization
of civil society, is for the individual, of the individual and by the individual. His critics never
penetrated deep into his theory and that was the reason why they got a superficial impression
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that absolutism is its core. In reality, though, if one tries to analyze his theory profoundly,
it is found that absolutism was only his ally, and accompaniment, a subservient idea for
another of his ideas – individualism. His absolutism derived everything from individualism.
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• From the opinion of the influence that his theory had on subsequent political thought, it is
seen that his individualism was more important than his absolutism. His individualism gave
rise to the laissez-faire theory which became a powerful tool in the hands of thinkers of
utilitarianism like Bentham, in the growth of his individualistic doctrines of the twentieth
century, and self-interest of an individual came to be regarded as the predominant motive
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in the individual’s life. His absolutism, on the other hand, was forgotten once the dust of the
revolution settled down. A wrong impression about him was that he was an absolutist and
nothing else, because he belonged to the Royalist camp.
• Sabine rightly says, “The absolute power of the sovereign – a theory with which Hobbes’s
name is generally associated – was really the necessary complement of his individualism.”
• Even a commentator like Vaughn, who is quite critical of Hobbes otherwise, while talking
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about his individualism, says, “While Hobbes’s theory of sovereignty resulted in absolutism,
it was nevertheless based on the doctrine that all men are naturally equal, and on the belief
in the desirability of a large measure of individual freedom.” Professor Wayper also says,
“The Leviathan is not merely a forceful enunciation of the doctrine of sovereignty, it is also
a powerful statement of the individualism.”
(b) Western political thought mainly contains ideas of political idealism and political
realism in this context how far it is correct to say Plato as father of political Idealism
and Aristotle as a father of political Philosophy?
The onset of western political thought starts with the ideological discourse between Plato and Aristotle
regarding the conception of State. The founding arguments and statements in a comparative
perspective by Andrew Hacker provide a justification for calling Plato as father of political Idealism
and Aristotle as a father of political Philosophy:
• They each had ideas of how to improve existing societies during their individual lifetimes.
The main focus of Plato is a perfect society. He creates a blueprint for a utopian society, in
his book The Republic, out of his disdain for the tension of political life. This blueprint was
a sketch of a society in which the problems he thought were present in his society would
be eased. Plato sought to cure the afflictions of both human society and human personality.
Essentially what Plato wants to achieve is a perfect society. Aristotle, unlike Plato, is not
concerned with perfecting society. He just wants to improve on the existing one. Rather than
produce a blueprint for the perfect society, Aristotle suggested, in his work, The Politics that
the society itself should reach for the best possible system that could be attained. Therefore
while the main objective of the former is establishment of an ideal state while the latter
prefers sustaining the actual depending upon the political realities of the prevailing times.
• Plato relied on the deductive approach, while Aristotle is an example of an inductive approach.
Utopia is a solution in abstract, a solution that has no concrete problem. There is no solid
evidence that all societies are in need of such drastic reformation as Plato suggests. Aristotle
discovers that the best possible has already been obtained. All that can be done is to try to
improve on the existing one.
• Plato’s utopia consists of three distinct, non-hereditary class systems. The Guardians consist
of non-ruling Guardians and ruling Guardians. The non-rulers are a higher level of civil
servants and the ruling is the society’s policy makers. Auxiliaries are soldiers and minor civil
servants. Finally the Workers are composed of farmers and artisans, most commonly unskilled
labourers. The Guardians are to be wise and good rulers. It is important that the rulers who
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emerge must be a class of craftsmen who are public-spirited in temperament and skilled in
the arts of government areas. The guardians are to be placed in a position in which they are
absolute rulers. They are supposed to be the select few who know what is best for society.
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Aristotle disagrees with the idea of one class holding discontinuing political power. The
failure to allow circulation between classes excludes those men who may be ambitious, and
wise, but are not in the right class of society to hold any type of political power. Aristotle
looks upon this ruling class system as an ill-conceived political structure. He quotes “It is a
further objection that he deprives his Guardians even of happiness, maintaining that happiness
of the whole state which should be the object of legislation,” ultimately he is saying that
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Guardians sacrifice their happiness for power and control. Guardians who lead such a strict
life will also think it necessary to impose the same strict lifestyle on the society it governs.
• Aristotle puts a high value on moderation there is so much of Plato’s utopia that is undefined
and it is carried to extremes that no human being could ever fulfil its requirements. Aristotle
believes that Plato is underestimating the qualitative change in human character and
personality that would have to take place in order to achieve his utopia. Plato chose to tell
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the reader of his Republic how men would act and what their attitudes would be in a
perfect society. Aristotle tries to use real men in the real world in an experimental fashion
to foresee how and in which ways they can be improved.
(c) How is social contract theory of John Locke significantly different from that of Thomas
Hobbes? Illustrate with special emphasis on Locke's social contract. Why is his doctrine
of resistance considered the most important part of his theory?
Issue Locke Hobbes
The Social We give up our right to ourselves If you shut up and do as you are told,
Contract exact retribution for crimes in you have the right not to be killed, and
return for impartial justice backed you do not even have the right not to be
by overwhelming force. We retain killed, for no matter what the Sovereign
the right to life and liberty, and does, it does not constitute violation of
gain the right to just, impartial the contract.
protection of our property
Violation of If a ruler seeks absolute power, if No right to rebel. “There can happen
the social he acts both as judge and no breach of covenant on the part of the
contract participant in disputes, he puts sovereign; and consequently none of his
himself in a state of war with his subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture,
subjects and we have the right and can be freed from his subjection.” The
the duty to kill such rulers and their ruler’s will defines good and evil for his
servants. subjects. The King can do no wrong,
because lawful and unlawful, good and
evil, are merely commands, merely the
will of the ruler.
Civil Society Civil society precedes the state, Civil society is the application of force
both morally and historically. by the state to uphold contracts and so
Society creates order and grants forth. Civil society is a creation of the
the state legitimacy. state. What most modern people would
call civil society is “jostling”, pointless
conflict and pursuit of selfish ends that
a good government should suppress.
Rights Men have rights by their nature You conceded your rights to the
government, in return for your life
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Role of the State The only important role of the Whatever the state does is just by
state is to ensure that justice is definition. All of society is a direct
seen to be done OR creation of the state, and a reflection of
the will of the ruler.
Authorized use Authorization is meaningless, The concept of just use of force is
of force except that the authorization gives meaningless or cannot be known. Just
us reason to believe that the use of use of force is whatever force is
force is just. If authorization does authorized
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not give us such confidence,

perhaps because the state itself is
a party to the dispute, or because
of past lawless acts and abuses by
the state, then we are back in a
state of nature.
His views on right to resistance and revolution
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Given that the end of “men’s uniting into common-wealth’s” is the preservation of their wealth,
and preserving their lives, liberty, and well-being in general, Locke can easily imagine the conditions
under which the compact with government is destroyed, and men are justified in resisting the
authority of a civil government, such as a King. When the executive power of a government devolves
into tyranny, such as by dissolving the legislature and therefore denying the people the ability to
make laws for their own preservation, then the resulting tyrant puts himself into a State of Nature,
and specifically into a state of war with the people, and they then have the same right to self-
defence as they had before making a compact to establish society in the first place. In other words,
the justification of the authority of the executive component of government is the protection of the
people’s property and well-being, so when such protection is no longer present, or when the king
becomes a tyrant and acts against the interests of the people, they have a right, if not an outright
obligation, to resist his authority. The social compact can be dissolved and the process to create
political society begun anew.
According to Locke, right of revolution is appeal to heaven. Locke stated that God has given the
right of revolution to human being against injustice, exploitation he also believed that true remedy
of fore without authority is to oppose force to it. John Plamenatz wrote that his (Locke’s) doctrine of
resistance is perhaps the most valuable part of his theory. According to Laski, Locke formulated not
a theory of government, but a theory of revolution. As per Locke, the right of people to rebel is the
best fence against the rebellion.
Because Locke did not envision the State of Nature as grimly as did Hobbes, he can imagine conditions
under which one would be better off rejecting a particular civil government and returning to the
State of Nature, with the aim of constructing a better civil government in its place. It is therefore
both the view of human nature, and the nature of morality itself, which account for the differences
between Hobbes’ and Locke’s views of the social contract.
8. (a) On what grounds can it be said that Machiavelli is amoral rather than immoral.
• Prior to Machiavelli almost all the political thinkers had held the opinion that state had an
ethical end and that its aim was to make man happy and good. Machiavelli broke away
from this tradition of the past. Machiavelli’s theory of moral indifference is based on his
study of Church in Italy. He levels two main charges on the Church. First, he states that the
Italians have become “irreligious and bad” because of the “evil example of the court of
Rome”. The second and more serious accusation is that of disunity which the Church has
caused in the country of the philosopher. He never hesitates to say that the sole cause of
Italian political disunity is the Church. It was but natural that Machiavelli should have no
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place for either morality or the religion in his political philosophy.
• Machiavelli said that the state was not a means to an end. It was an end in itself. He ignores
OR
the issue of the end of the state in extra political (ethical, religious, cultural) terms. He
assumes that power is an end in itself and he confines his inquiries into the means that are
best suited to acquire, retain, and expand power. The end justified everything.
• Machiavelli is not against the religion itself. He says that the right kind of religion can be of
great value in creating stability in the state. Religion provides a sanction without which
oaths may be useless and it may increase loyalty and unity. Machiavelli’s judgment of
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religion is strictly utilitarian. He is concerned with “truth” and with the salvation of souls.
A religion is good if it supports the state and contributes to state ends. He is against Christianity
which, according to him, has divided the Italians.
• Machiavelli, therefore, separates ethics from politics. Statecraft, according to him constitutes
a value system its own which is different from that of ethics and religion. What is evil from
the viewpoint of morality and religion may, therefore, be good from the viewpoint of the
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reason of the state if it serves to acquire, retain or expand power. Machiavelli reduces good
and evil from absolute to relative categories and it depends upon the basic assumption of a
system of values whether a particular action is good or bad. If the basic assumption or
objective of conduct is friendship, service, fellowship, justice, or God, the individual action
will be judged good or bad to the extent it agrees with or deviates from such assumption
and goals. If as for the ruler, the basic assumption is power, the decision as to whether a
particular action is good or, bad will depend on the extent to which it furthers the gain
retention and growth of power.
• Machiavelli does not deny moral principles. He says that it is most praise-worthy for a prince
to be good, nevertheless one who wishes to maintain his authority must be ready to lay aside
his goodness at any moment and in general, to employ it or not according to the circumstance.
Furthermore, a prince must appear all sincerity, all uprightness, all humanity, all religion,
but he must have his mind so disciplined that when it is necessary to save the state he acts
regardless of all these. It follows that Machiavelli makes ethics subservient to politics. He says
that a prudent ruler can turn the course of ethics to advantage of the state. In his own
words “When the safety of our country in absolutely at stake, there needs no question of
what is just or unjust, merciful, glorious or shameful. That course alone is to be taken which
may save our country and maintain independence”.
• It is to be noted that Machiavelli presents a double standard of morality, one for the ruler
and another for the ruled. The first standard is judged by success in increasing his powers
for which even cruelty and murder are sanctioned by Machiavelli. The second standard is
judged by the strength which this rulers’ conduct imparts to the social group. “Since the
ruler is outside the group, he is above the morality to be enforced within group”.
• Machiavelli holds that the interests of the state are different from those of the individual. An
individual acts for himself whereas the state acts for all. Hence the same principle of conduct
cannot be applied to the individual and the ruler who administers the state. An individual
is bound to keep faith but ruler is not bound to keep faith if it goes against the interests or
integrity of the state. It is always wrong for the individual to tell lies, deceive others or kill
another individual. However it is good and necessary for the ruler to tell lies, deceive others
and kill others if the interests of the state so demand. Despite all this, Machiavelli favor a
gentle rule wherever possible and the use of severity only in, moderation.
• It is to be observed that Machiavelli never praises immorality for its own sake. It is sanctioned
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to gain an end. He never doubted that moral corruption in a people made good government
impossible. What he did was a separation of ethics from politics. His basic attitude is not the
rejection of the corrupt political institutions, religious and moral beliefs. He neither assumes
OR
that there are no values in this world nor does he wish to create a world in which all values
would be destroyed. He is aware that civilization implies some sort of values. His morality,
therefore, implies not the denial of moral values in all situations but the affirmation that, in
the specific situation of Statesman, the rules of power have priority over those of ethics and
morality.
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• What Machiavelli wants to emphasize is that political as its own morality which must be
taken into consideration while dealing with political issues. It is mainly for this reason that
he is called “unmoral or un-religious rather than immoral or irreligious in his politics”.
(b) Mill's reluctance of democracy is his genuine concern for democracy, comment?
• The great achievement in the hands of John Stuart Mill is that he showed liberalism needed –
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of all things — democracy. For Mill, liberalism needed democracy for two reasons, or in two
senses: first, it needed democracy for ethical reasons. For a society to be truly liberal, i.e. for
it to truly maximize the freedom of all individuals, meant, among other things, that at least
the lower classes could not be denied political equality (or some approximation to it).
• But secondly, and somewhat more hidden, liberalism needed democracy in a pragmatic
sense: it needed to avoid the total disaffection of the lower classes, i.e. of the vast majority.
It was necessary, for the sake of survival, to grant them access to at least the vestibule of the
corridors of power. Moreover, this would be a powerful way of enlisting their energies and,
not least, of drawing them away from anti-capitalist, anti-liberal conservatives (who were at
that time at least as dangerous as democrats and socialists).
• So J.S. Mill’s political thought is a response to a number of different contenders, and is an
attempt to both answer objections from and incorporate into liberalism features from a
variety of positions hitherto hostile to liberalism.
• Mill argued, to and against conservatives, that 1. Democracy was not only inherently a good
thing, but was not essentially dangerous to social order and the rule of the better sort of
individual – the morally excellent member of the wealthier and leisured classes. 2. He argued
against anti-democratic or simply frightened liberals that democracy was necessary to the
progress of liberalism, to the maximization of individual freedom, and was not dangerous
to the basic conditions of capitalist development. 3. Against radicals and socialists he vied
for the allegiance of the lower classes, not only by arguing that liberalism recognized the
necessity for political reform in the direction of greater equality, but also by arguing for
economic reforms that would substantially alleviate the misery and increase the dignity of
those without or with little property.
• This is quite a challenging situation, and given Mill’s starting point, it would be difficult to
blame him personally for some of the failures and confusions of his theory. Yet Mill is not
simply a liberal democrat, he is a liberal democratic of a certain sort, committed to a certain
type of general philosophy. His theory is not based, like that of Hobbes or Locke, on the idea
of certain inherent natural rights of the individual, but upon the doctrines of utilitarianism.
The relation between Mill’s synthesis of liberalism and democracy is actually based upon
his reform of earlier utilitarianism.
• So far, these would seem to be arguments for widespread — indeed, universal — direct
democracy. In fact, unlike many writers interested in expanding the franchise, Mill defends
E
the extension of the franchise to women too, rejecting any restriction on their franchise as
baseless. But Mill qualifies this defense of direct democracy in various significant ways.
•
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Mill defends representative, rather than direct, democracy. Direct democracy is impractical
in anything but a small community. But representative democracy has the further advantage
of allowing the community to rely in its decision-making on the contributions of individuals
with special qualifications of intelligence or character. In this way, representative democracy
represents a more effective use of resources within the citizenry to advance the common
good.
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• Also, Wayper believed that Mill’s emphasis on self-development insofar came close to reluctant
democrat. Mill had firm belief that most of the citizens are inactive, uneducated, illiterate,
uncivilized, biased, prejudiced and full of regional aspiration. That is why, plural voting
system should be there that gives more weight to citizens with special intellectual and moral
qualifications. He wrote:
• “One of the greatest danger, therefore of democracy as of other forms of government lies in
GS
the sinister interest of the holders of power: it is danger of class legislation: of government
intended for… the immediate benefit of dominant of whole”
Mill in order to protect citizens from tyranny of majority and legislators suggested
1. Plural voting
2. System of proportion repression
3. Educational and experience qualification for legislators
4. Open voting system
5. They (legislators) must not be paid because salary promotes professional politician
6. State should not interfere in self-regarding work and must perform less work
Mill in his book ‘Principle of political economy’ supported personal property and quality of laissez-
faire. He supported economic competition, free trade and market mechanism and said that free
competition and open trade promotes citizens’ talent. Mill supports socialism, but in different sense.
He limited socialism in context of parental property rights and established voluntary cooperative
socialism and also welcomed trade union. “Laissez-faire, in short, should be the general practice;
every departure from it, unless required by some great god, is a certain evil.”
(c) Discuss the Marx's idea of alienation, how far it is correct to say 'Idea of one dimensional
man' provides better understanding of modern capitalist industrial society?
Marx argues that alienation is largely a product of class society in general and of capitalism in
particular. Marx’s most detailed discussion of alienation is in his Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts, which he wrote in 1844 and was published in the 1930s. In this work, Marx focuses on
what he calls “alienated labour,” because he sees alienation at work as the central form of alienation.
This is based on the assumption that the need to engage in free, creative labour is a central part of
human nature. It’s precisely because capitalism systematically frustrates that need, that it is an
alienating system. What Marx wrote about blue-collar work in the mid-nineteenth century remains
true of much white-collar work at the beginning of the twenty-first.
In capitalist society the creation of objects (production) does not help man to realize himself i.e. to
realize its potential.
Capitalism production

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Alienating circumstances  objectification  Dehumanization
Alienation as exist in capitalist society has 3 dimensions
OR
(1) Man’s alienating from nature (2) Alienation from humanity/fellow workers (3) Alienation from
himself.
In capitalist production takes place in alienating circumstances & this makes objectification into
domination. The object produced by labourer by his labour, its product, now stands opposed to
him as an alien being as a power independent of him. In this way, labour itself becomes object.
SC
Work as  object production  belong to capitalist class

• In modern societies, individuals are getting increasingly cut off from their creativity, from
nature, from his family and friends and finally from themselves.
• The modern man has been reduced to an animal existence and just for the sake of fulfilment
of his biological and material needs, his human tendencies including the taste for literature,
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art, music etc. have disappeared from his life.

• Even the capitalist himself, no less than the worker, becomes a slave to the tyrannical rule
of money.
Concept of One Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society is a 1964 book by
philosopher Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse offers a wide-ranging critique of both contemporary capitalism
and the Communist society of the Soviet Union, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of
social repression in both these societies, as well as the decline of revolutionary potential in the West.
He argues that “advanced industrial society” created false needs, which integrated individuals into
the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial
management, and contemporary modes of thought. This results in a “one-dimensional” universe of
thought and behaviour, in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behaviour
wither away.
Marcuse strongly criticizes consumerism and capitalism, arguing that it is a form of social control.
He suggests that the system we live in may claim to be democratic, but it is actually authoritarian in
that a few individuals dictate our perceptions of freedom by only allowing us choices to buy for
happiness. In this state of “unfreedom”, consumers act irrationally by working more than they are
required to in order to fulfil actual basic needs, by ignoring the psychologically destructive effects,
by ignoring the waste and environmental damage it causes, and by searching for social connection
through material items.
It is even more irrational in the sense that the creation of new products, calling for the disposal of
old products, fuels the economy and encourages the need to work more to buy more. An individual
loses his or her humanity and becomes a tool in the industrial machine and a cog in the consumer
machine. Additionally, advertising sustains consumerism, which disintegrates societal demeanour,
delivered in bulk and informing the masses that happiness can be bought, an idea that is
psychologically damaging.
There are other alternatives to counter the consumer lifestyle. Anti-consumerism is a lifestyle that
demotes any unnecessary consumption, as well as unnecessary work, waste, etc. But even this
alternative is complicated by the extreme interpenetration of advertising and commodification because
everything is a commodity, even those things that are actual needs.
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
OR
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IAS 2018

Political Science Test Series 2018

(a) Historic Materialism by Marx (10)

(c) Notion of Counter hegemony by Antonio Gramsci (10)

(d) Locke as an individualist out and out.

(e) Platonic classes and justice in the ideal state. (10)

2. Attempt all questions:

3. Attempt all questions:

4. Attempt all questions:

(b) Comparison of Aristotle and Marx in terms of 'Revolution'. (15)

5. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:

(a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci (10)

(b) Aristotle's idea of equality (10)

(c) Critique of General will by Rousseau (10)

(d) Basic principles of Utilitarianism by Bentham (10)

(e) Hannah Arendt on Revolution (10)

6. Attempt all questions:

7. Attempt all questions:

resistance considered the most important part of his theory? (20)

8. Attempt all questions:

Political Science Test Series 2018

• Word limit in questions, wherever specified, should be adhered to.

1. Answer the following questions: (150 Words Each) (10 × 5 = 50)

(a) Historic Materialism by Marx

(b) Mill's defence of rights of women

(c) Notion of Counter hegemony by Antonio Gramsci

(d) Locke as an individualist out and out.

(e) Platonic classes and justice in the ideal state.

2. Attempt all questions:

3. Attempt all questions:

4. Attempt all questions:

(a) Hanna Arendt's Notion of 'Vita Contemplative' and 'Vita Activa'

(b) Comparison of Aristotle and Marx in terms of 'Revolution'.

5. Answer the following questions: (150 Words (10 × 5 = 50)

(a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci

(b) Aristotle's idea of equality

(c) Critique of General will by Rousseau

(d) Basic principles of Utilitarianism by Bentham

(e) Hannah Arendt on Revolution

6. Attempt all questions:

(a) Revolution from above' is considered to be a paradigm shift in Marxist philosophy',

7. Attempt all questions:

8. Attempt all questions:

1. (a) Historic Materialism by Marx

(b) Mill's defence of rights of women

the light of a universal law.

major attributes of Hobbesian Sovereignty.

5. (a) Notion of organic and traditional intellectuals in writings of Gramsci

not give us such confidence,

Work as  object production  belong to capitalist class

art, music etc. have disappeared from his life.

[40] Hints: Political Science

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