display all the ideas for this combination of texts
16 ideas
| 20564 | Anti-colonial movements usually invoke the right of their 'people' to self-determination [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Nationalist movements seeking to throw off the yoke of colonial rule are often motivated by a sense that their 'people' have the right to self-determination. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Intrinsic 1') | |
| A reaction: In 2017, Basques, Catalans and Kurds come to mind. The whole of Africa was an example of this c.1950-80, but there was uncertainty about states, tribes and language groups. |
| 20535 | Isn't it more rational to maximise the average position, but with a safety net? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Wouldn't it be more rational to choose principles that would maximize the average position, perhaps subject to some 'floor' level beneath which they would not want to take the risk of sinking? | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls') | |
| A reaction: The criticism is that Rawls's prediction is over-cautious, and that people will take mild risks in what they choose, as long as there is no danger of disaster. (Just as you should allow small children to risk injury, but not death). |
| 20537 | Hypothetical contracts have no binding force [Swift] |
| Full Idea: A common objection to Rawls is that hypothetical contracts, unlike real ones, have no binding force. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls') | |
| A reaction: [I think Dworkin made this point] 'Contract' may be metaphorical. Perhaps it is just an 'initial agreement' or a 'working arrangement', |
| 20542 | Cosmopolitans reject the right of different states to distribute resources in different ways [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Cosmopolitans who claim that the same distributive principles should apply to all human beings seem to be denying that different states may make different judgements about how they want to allocate resources among their members. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Social') | |
| A reaction: If you want to be a citizen of the world, you have to face up to the pluralistic character of cultures. Do you thereby want to be a citizen of both California and Saudi Arabia? Or are you actually just becoming a citizen of nowhere? |
| 20559 | Democracy is bad, but the other systems are worse [Swift] |
| Full Idea: During WW2 Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Procedures') | |
| A reaction: [Actually a speech in 1947, which began 'it has been said that....'] Aristotle thought an intelligent and benevolent dictatorship was the best form, but held little hope of achieving it. Getting rid of bad rulers is the big virtue. |
| 20561 | Since all opinions are treated as equal in democracy, it implies there are no right answers [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If there were moral knowledge about political matters, democracy would be a very strange way of reaching it. Democratic law-making means treating each person's view as equally good, which only makes sense if there is nothing to be right or wrong about. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Subjectivism') | |
| A reaction: Ah, I suddenly grasp that the modern fad for a rather gormless blanket relativism is rooted in the modern desire to take democracy really seriously. Important to remember Condorcet's point here. |
| 20562 | Design your democracy to treat citizens equally, or to produce better citizens? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If your main reason for being a democrat is that democratic procedures respect citizens equally, then you may want a different kind of democracy from those who favour it because they think it tends to produce better citizens? | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Values') | |
| A reaction: [Combine this with Idea 20563] |
| 20563 | Design your democracy to yield political stability, or good decisions? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If you value democracy because it yields political stability, then you will probably worry about different aspects of the procedure from those who care about its producing good decisions. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Values') | |
| A reaction: [Combine this with Idea 20562] Surely the primary aim must be good decisions? The other three options are the result of pessimism about any method achieving that. Instability, inequality and dud citizens are bars to good decisions. |
| 20560 | Teledemocracy omits debate and deliberation, which are important parts of good decisions [Swift] |
| Full Idea: We are averse to teledemocracy because it misses out some important parts of a good decision-making procedure, such as debate and deliberation. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Procedures') | |
| A reaction: Perhaps you should be sent a short info pack, and only allowed to vote when you have passed a factual multiple choice test about the topic. Or one pack from each political party. Maybe compulsory online discussion as well. |
| 20554 | Multiculturalism is a barrier to the whole state being a community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: For those wanting to regard the state itself as a community, multiculturalism can be a problem. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Liberalism') | |
| A reaction: A very important idea. A certain type of aggressive patriot passionately wants the whole country to be a close-bound community, and becomes deeply frustrated by the impossibility of this in a complex and fluid modern world. |
| 20553 | Liberals mistakenly think individuals choose their values, without reference to the community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The two core liberal mistakes (according to communitarians) are that people choose their values, and that they do so in some way detached from their communities. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Correcting') | |
| A reaction: I think I might be a communitarian liberal, meaning that extreme individualism is both incorrect and pernicious, but that communities should only exist to promote the varied lives of individuals within them. |
| 20556 | The best way to build a cohesive community is to be involved in a war [Swift] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing like a war to build a sense of common purpose, of being in the same boat, and to generate the kind of interaction between people that breaks down divisive social boundaries. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014]) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning to those who over-do or simplify communitarianism. Alternatively, the greatest sign of health in a community is that citizens have almost no interest in one another? |
| 20557 | Membership and inclusion in a community implies non-membership and exclusion [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Community is about membership and inclusion. But that means it is also about non-membership and exclusion. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Conc') | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of communitarianism (focused on Aristotle's life of individual virtue for each citizen), but I'm beginning to see that it has a poisonous cousin travelling under the same name. The cousin's rallying cries focus on aliens and enemies. |
| 20555 | Liberals are concerned to protect individuals from too much community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Liberals are concerned to protect individuals from too much community - from practices that stifle the individual's freedom to choose for herself how she lives her life. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Liberalism') | |
| A reaction: The phrase 'too much community' is an excellent warning to communitarians. I'm happy to be enmeshed in a community, as long as it is composed of highly liberal and easy-going individuals. Avoid too much bad community. |
| 20540 | Redistributing wealth treats some people as means, rather than as ends [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Treating people as means seems like a fairly accurate description of what is involved when the state coercively redistributes resources from some to others. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Nozick') | |
| A reaction: The objection comes from Nozick, and alludes to Kant's desire to treat everyone as an end in themselves. Personally I don't mind at all being treated as a means, when my wife asks me to make her a cup of tea. Or paying my taxes to help the community. |
| 20551 | Men have had the power to structure all of our social institutions [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The problem for feminists is that men have had the power to structure all our social institutions - family, economy, polity - in ways that suit them. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 3 'Gender') | |
| A reaction: An interesting question is whether masculine domination runs even deeper than that, into our value system, our metaphysics, our science, our epistemology, our language. How do you tell? If women take over half the masculine roles, does that solve it? |