THE POLITICAL NEEDS OF A TOOLMAKING ANIMAL: MADISON, HAMILTON, LOCKE, AND THE QUESTION OF PROPERTY

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Paul A. Rahe
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
The Political ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
The Common

When Benjamin Franklin suggested that man is by nature a tool-making animal, he summed up what was for his fellow Americans the common sense of the matter. It is not, then, surprising that, when Britain's colonists in North America broke with the mother country over the issue of an unrepresentative parliament's right to tax and govern the colonies, they defended their right to the property they owned on the ground that it was in a most thorough-going sense an extension of themselves: the fruits of their own labor. This understanding they learned from John Locke, who based the argument of his Two Treatises of Government on the unorthodox account of providence and of man's place within the natural world that Sir Francis Bacon had been the first to articulate. All of this helps explain why the framers of the American constitution included within it a clause giving sanction to property in ideas of practical use.

scholarly journals THE FUNCTION OF INFORMAL GUANXI CIRCLE IN ANCIENT CHINA POLITICAL STRUCTURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Ruihui Han
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Previous Researcher ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Common

Guanxi circle play a critical role in ancient China politics. Based on guanxi, two kinds of guanxi groups formed: formal guanxi circle and informal guanxi circle. The former refers to the group centered the emperor; the latter refers to the groups with the powerful and charismatic figures as the core, except for the emperor. In order to consolidate the political power, the emperors in different periods would try to prevent the informal guanxi circle in political structure. Besides, various scriptures also denounce the informal guanxi circle, deeming such circle as harmful. The judgement of informal guanxi circle appeals to research, as there is no previous researcher has address such problems. This study set out to examine whether the informal guanxi circle is harmful to the whole political structure. Results show that the informal guanxi circle, in the antecedent of satisfactory communication, can be extremely meaningful to the whole political structure. This study implies that the fact of informal guanxi circle is on the contrary of the common sense derived from the scriptures and the superficial ancient political activities, such as the emperor’s order to prevent the informal guanxi circle. The findings can contribute a better understanding of the ancient informal guanxi circle in ancient political structure in China.

Silences, Secrets, and Sensibilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Action Plans ◽  
The Common

This chapter explores representations of silence, and perceived absences, in the WPS stories analyzed here. Specific silences and absences have a formative effect on the political affordances generated by the WPS agenda; the “common sense” of WPS is that these dimensions should be left unspoken lest they provide cynics and skeptics with critical ammunition to undermine the agenda. Examining these silences and absences as constitutive of the WPS agenda, and therefore as implicated in both its failures and its successes, reinforces the plurality and polyvalences of WPS as it emerges as a knowable policy agenda through its narration. The suppressed frustrations and the barely detectable influences and influencers are as much part of the formation of the WPS agenda as the indicators, audits, and action plans. This chapter surfaces some of these silences and secrets and describes the sensibilities that emerge through the storytelling.

Arguments for deliberative participation in local economic development

2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Bajmócy ◽  
Judit Gébert
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
A Value ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

According to the common sense, experts, backed up by scientific methods, describe the “possible states of the world” in a value-neutral way. Then, in the political arena, delegates build on these proposals, but also consider values and interests. The present paper attempts to revise such an understanding of local economic development (LED) and argues that many of the deficiencies deriving from such a view can be remedied by deliberative participation, which is not merely a theoretical necessity, but also a practical possibility.With regard to the issue of public participation and deliberation, the paper identifies two main approaches in the LED literature: the “political” and the “apolitical”, of which the latter is mainly characterised by economic theorising. We take a closer look at the “apolitical” approach and demonstrate that in fact it is very much political. Therefore, we call for the transgression of the borderline between politics and expertise in LED, and suggest a joint democratisation of these interrelated terrains. We argue that deliberative participation is able to contribute to the quality of both the expert proposals and the working of the politics.

Metaphysics, Moral Sense, and the Pragmatism of the Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna L. Blumenthal
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Standpoint ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

The authors of these insightful and stimulating commentaries all express skepticism about the role I assign to the Scottish Common Sense philosophy in my historical analysis, though their reasons for doing so are strikingly at odds with each other. Sarah Seo and John Witt concede the importance of the Common Sense philosophy at a theoretical level, even as they call attention to certain “competitor theories” of human nature, noting that these darker views of the self may have proved more influential in the framing of the American constitution. However, they go on to contend that all of this philosophizing about the human mind was actually of little consequence in the everyday adjudication of civil and criminal liability, as judges found more practical means of resolving “the otherwise intractable questions of moral responsibility” left unanswered by the Scottish philosophy. John Mikhail, by contrast, appears to be far more sanguine about the tractability of these questions, from a philosophical standpoint, going so far as to suggest that they were more or less resolved by British moralists before the Scottish Common Sense school even came into being. What truly set the Common Sense philosophers apart from their predecessors, and ought to determine their place in this history of ideas, Mikhail concludes, was the manner in which they contributed to the scientific process of tracing out the inner structure and innate capacities of “the moral mind”—a topic that is currently of intense interest in the cognitive and brain sciences.

Merchant Courts, Arbitration, and the Politics of Commercial Litigation in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian R. Burset
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
British Empire ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Merchant

John Locke worried that the common law was bad for business. Although he recognized the political importance of common law institutions such as juries, he also thought that the cumbersome procedures of English courts might hamper economic development in England and its colonies. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which Locke helped draft in 1669, tried to reconcile these competing political and economic concerns. Although the Constitutions guaranteed “Freemen” a right to trial by jury, the document also provided for specialized judges in port towns to “try cases belonging to [the] law-merchant.” These commercial judges would allow merchants to settle their disputes “as shall be most convenient for trade,” rather than by the expensive formality of the common law.

RESPONSIBLE CHOICES, DESERT-BASED LEGAL INSTITUTIONS, AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY NEUROSCIENCE

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
The Real ◽  
Brain States ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Psychology

AbstractNeuroscience is commonly thought to challenge the basic way we think of ourselves in ordinary thought, morality, and the law. This paper: (1) describes the legal institutions challenged in this way by neuroscience, including in that description both the political philosophy such institutions enshrine and the common sense psychology they presuppose; (2) describes the three kinds of data produced by contemporary neuroscience that is thought to challenge these commonsense views of ourselves in morals and law; and (3) distinguishes four major and several minor kinds of challenges that that data can reasonably be interpreted to present. The major challenges are: first, the challenge of reductionism, that we are merely machines; second, the challenge of determinism, that we are caused to choose and act as we do by brain states that we do not control; third, the challenge of epiphenomenalism, that our choices do not cause our actions because our brains are the real cause of those actions; and fourth, the challenge of fallibilism, that we do not have direct access to those of our mental states that do cause our actions, nor are we infallible in such knowledge as we do have of them.

scholarly journals Legal Aesthetics in The Touching Contract: Memory, Exposure and Transformation

2021 ◽  
pp. 174387212098711
Author(s):  
Máiréad Enright ◽  
Tina Kinsella
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
Working Through ◽  
The Common ◽  
Performance Project ◽  
Legal Aesthetics ◽  
Participatory Performance

This paper considers how an artwork might play a role in the political, legal and aesthetical ‘working-through’ of historical injustices. With specific reference to Sarah Browne and Jesse Jones’ participatory performance project, The Touching Contract (2016), we consider how traumatic affects from Ireland’s past continue to shape the present. Drawing primarily on the work of Jacques Rancière and Bracha L. Ettinger, we argue that The Touching Contract has the capacity to transform participants’ relation to legal history in two ways. First, by juxtaposing unspoken histories of female bodily vulnerability in relation to law with legal form during an encounter with participatory performance, this art project generates ‘mystery’, producing a productive ‘interval’ (Rancière) between the common sense of legal history and its potential re-calibration. Second, in its production of a relational ‘affectosphere’ (Kinsella), The Touching Contract provokes participants’ capacity to engage with that interval, to be genuinely affected by the transmission of legal history and respond to it in new ways.

Thomas Paine’s democratic linguistic radicalism: a political philosophy of language?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carine Lounissi
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Man

Carine Lounissi’s premise in this chapter is that characterising Thomas Paine’s radicalism is a challenge, which she takes up by focusing on his “democratic style” as a way to make his ideas accessible to the common man. The author thus studies Paine’s “democratic style”, for which he was harshly criticised, as being part and parcel of his inherently republican and democratic radicalism. She argues that in his writings Paine sought to deconstruct the discourse of the political elite of his time, associated with the trappings of royalty, and promoted the language of common sense instead as an instrument of resistance predicated on the universality of human nature. He invented a radical linguistics whereby he wished to go back to the roots of words.

The Constitutionality of Treaties

1919 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quincy Wright
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Perpetual Peace ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Competitive Nature

The framers of the American Constitution did not anticipate or desire the conclusion of many treaties. For this reason they made the process of treaty conclusion difficult, requiring that the President act only with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senators present, some even wishing to require adhesion of the House of Representatives or a two-thirds majority of the entire Senate.This hope, however, has scarcely been realized. With a total of 595 treaties from its foundation to August, 1914, the United States has averaged more than four a year, and for the twentieth century fifteen a year, or a treaty ratified every three weeks. Along with the steady increase in the number of treaties concluded a year, there has been a change in their usual character. Jefferson’s warning against “entangling alliances” might be interpreted as a warning against treaties, for at that time the faithful observance of treaties commonly amounted to passive if not active alliance. Aside from definite guarantees of offensive or defensive alliance, the pious hope of “perpetual peace and amity” between the contractuaries, special privileges in war and neutrality, reciprocal favors in commerce and navigation, the termination of war, transfer of territory, fixation of boundaries, and recognition of status were the common subjects of treaty stipulation. The provisions were of a character indicating the competitive nature of international society. By mutually enjoying special privileges, the contracting states hoped to improve their political position with respect to other states of the world. Thus the carrying out of treaty provisions was ordinarily a matter for the political organs of government.

scholarly journals Shooting Yourself First in the Foot, then in the Head: Normative Democracy Is Suffocating, and then the Coronavirus Came to Light

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 722-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Carr
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Economic

Abstract This text starts with the premise that ‘normative democracy’ has rendered our societies vulnerable and burdened with unaddressed social inequalities. I highlight three central arguments: (1) Social media, and, consequently, citizen engagement are becoming a significant filter that can potentially re-imagine the political, economic, and social worlds, which increasingly bleed over to how we might develop and engage with ‘democracy’; to this end, I introduce a brief case study on the nefarious interpretation of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 to underscore the tension points in normative democracy; (2) Capitalism, or neoliberalism, needs to be more fully exposed, interrogated, and confronted if ‘normative, representative, hegemonic, electoral democracy’ is to be re-considered, re-imagined, and re-invented; the perpetuation of social inequalities lays bare the frailty of normative democratic institutions; (3) Covid-19 has exposed the fault lines and fissures of normative democracy, illustrating here the ‘common sense’ ways that power imbalances are sustained, which leaves little room for social solidarity; I present herein the case of the economic/labor dynamic in Quebec during the coronavirus. Ultimately, I believe the quest to re-imagine a more meaningful, critically engaged democracy, especially during a context that is imbued with a political, economic, and public health crisis, cannot be delayed much longer.

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