Plots, Power, and Political Tricks
This Florentine diplomat and author of The Prince believed that political success often demands morally objectionable acts.
Who is Machiavelli?
This 17th-century philosopher wrote Leviathan to argue that fear of violent death in the state of nature justified an absolute sovereign.
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This English philosopher believed that individuals are born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
Who is John Locke?
This Enlightenment thinker argued that “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
This English philosopher argued that all laws and policies should aim to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Who is Jeremy Bentham?
According to Machiavelli, this mythical founder’s murder of his brother was justified by the creation of a new city.
Who is Romulus?
According to Hobbes, only this kind of power can bring peace and prevent civil war.
What is absolute sovereign power?
According to Locke, governments gain legitimacy through this essential principle involving the people.
What is consent of the governed?
In his theory, true freedom comes when individuals obey laws they give themselves, an idea he called this.
What is the general will?
He feared the "tyranny of the majority" and argued for protections of individuality in On Liberty.
Who is John Stuart Mill?
Unlike Stoic philosophy, Machiavelli emphasized the real conflict between these two concepts in political life.
What are justice and expediency?
Hobbes famously described life in the state of nature with these three bleak adjectives.
What are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?
Locke argued that individuals gain ownership of land and goods by mixing them with this.
What is labor?
This concept, criticized by Rousseau, was seen as the root of inequality and the downfall of natural freedom.
What is private property?
This term, central to Bentham’s thought, refers to the measurement of pain and pleasure as the basis for moral and political decision-making.
What is utility?
This religious institution placed The Prince on its first-ever Index of Prohibited Books.
What is the Catholic Church?
For Hobbes, people consent to political rule not out of love or virtue but because of this powerful motivator.
What is fear?
Locke asserted that when a ruler breaks the social contract and becomes tyrannical, the people have this right.
What is the right to revolution?
According to this theory, only by entering a collective agreement can people preserve both freedom and equality.
What is the social contract?
According to Mill, these types of pursuits offer higher forms of pleasure than physical gratification.
What are intellectual and moral pursuits?
Machiavelli intended The Prince to be this kind of pitch to the Medici rulers of Florence.
What is a job application?
Hobbes argued that this condition exists when there are no external impediments to one’s actions, even under absolute rule.
What is liberty?
Locke supported this political arrangement to ensure no single branch of government held all the power.
What is the separation of powers?
This educational goal involves preparing individuals to think independently while equipping them to participate in public life.
What are personal freedom and civic responsibility?
In contrast to utilitarianism’s focus on outcomes, Hegel emphasized this concept, which grounds political life in shared moral norms and institutions.
What is the ethical life?