Vocab!
A space of interaction between people that exists beyond the private and has impact on all the people within it.
Public sphere
Where does Hobbes believe that all power should be located?
One sovereign who rules over all others for their protection
Which thinker focuses on a knowable general will that can be figured out through individual reflection and expressed through assemblies?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
What do Habermas and Arendt think is the key characteristic of the public sphere?
The idea that women are relegated to the domestic sphere is contextually located in the 1970's and thus needs rethinking for the 21st century
Pateman
The social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group
Hegemony
What is the foundation of Locke's social contract?
Consensual mutual protection
What does Marx believe should replace the public and private sphere?
One social sphere in which an engaged citizen can live.
Where does Pateman argue that women have been traditionally relegated to?
The private sphere, which is domesticated and thus doubly divorced from the public
Subjecting people to the general will can lead to fewer freedoms, not greater, and can serve as the foundation for totalitarianism.
A theory maintaining the political and economic independence of the singular person and stressing their initiative, action, and interests
Individualism
What does it mean when Bentham says the state should aim to 'maximise utility'?
The state should aim to create the most happiness for the biggest number of individual people.
What does Marx believe the private sphere does to citizens?
It alienates us from the 'political' which becomes only concerned with the state.
Why do counterpublics form according to Squires?
Because marginalised groups are denied the same full access to the hegemonic public sphere
There is little to no evidence of 'natural rights', only human rights that we create and attribute ourselves. A natural rights argument is essentially a religious argument.
Locke (the critique comes from Bentham)
A theory with an emphasis on shared or common rather than individual action or identity
Collectivism
What is the role of the state in Adam Smith's vision of the public sphere?
To aim for some public good, mostly through correcting market issues (though not so much that it disrupts the invisible hand)
What does Rousseau believe will happen if the public sphere becomes a sphere of debate?
Individual wills will inject selfishness and lead to the public sphere becoming a sphere of competing individuals rather than the public in general.
How does the public sphere begin to fail according to Arendt and Habermas?
When people become passive consumers of information and goods rather than active citizens
Rationality as a goal can lead to a) the public sphere following instrumental rationality rather than ethical or moral arguments and b) exclude entire groups from the debate
Arendt and Habermas
A division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities; opposite sides of a binary.
Dichotomy
How do each of the individualists believe we can find 'the public good'?
Hobbes - there is no common good, only the will of the state
Bentham - through maximising utility for as many as possible
Locke - through deliberative democracy that emphasises natural rights (including property rights)
Smith - through the expression of the invisible hand of the market
What did Hegel believe about the private sphere?
That it doesn't exist - human beings exist through our social practices and it is only by thinking of others that we can achieve true freedom
What are the three types of counterpublic according to Squires and what do they each do?
Enclave - a hidden space for lively debate
Counterpublic - an open space which engages with the hegemonic public to change it
Satellite - a public that refuses to engage with the dominant public except occasionally
Attempting to collapse the public and private sphere into one can actually remove the space for political engagement and lead to an apolitical existence.
Marx (criticism by Arendt)