Dif Spinoza Similarities

Mencius once again underscores the people’s role in the heavenly mandate and declares their right to either abide by or revolt against a ruler. Mencius claims that “rulers only possessed the Heavenly Mandate to rule so long as they retained the hearts of the people . . . For Mencius, the human heart was ‘endowed with the ability to judge between right and wrong’ and constituted ‘a bridge linking man with Heaven’” (Glanville 331). Mencius’s belief in the ability of the heart to determine right or wrong gives the common people authority and power to identify whether a ruler is worthy of the mandate and the favor of the heavens. Consequently, it is imperative that the ruler retains the people’s support as negative sentiments can lead to dissent and organized revolt amongst the people. This emphasis on the intimate and powerful link between the people and the heavens is translated in Mencius’s concept of the “ultimate supremacy of the people.” Mencius declares that “The people are of supreme importance; the altars to the gods of earth and grain come next; last comes the ruler” (Glanville 332). Mencius prioritizes the

The identity of a society is verified through the rights which are given to the citizens. The rights of man have been at many different standards throughout time. Often being very one sided, and at times striving for a median between the two sides. In Edmund Burke's essay Reflections on the Revolution in France Burke states that a king is in one sense a servant but in everyday situations they are above every individual. All persons under him owe him a legal agreement to serve his hopes. This essay will demonstrate why Thomas Paine's essay The Rights of Man is more convincing than Edmund Burke's through examination of a heredity government, the nature of rights and the uselessness of the monarchy.

1. The problems that Thomas Paine sees with the British monarchy involve its straying from ideal government, the unjust placement of one individual above all others, and its hereditary aspect. The problems that Thomas Paine sees with King George III in particular are his personal transgressions against liberty. Thomas Paine, firstly views government as “but a necessary evil” (15), and therefore it should be both as limited as possible and also tied to the more positive society. The ideal form of government, thus according to Paine, is a simple republic where the elected are forced to be accountable to their electors (16). The British monarchy fails in all accounts; not only does the prescence of a monarchy at all eliminate the accountability of a republic, but the complicatedness of the British monarchy system makes it worse in this aspect than even other monarchies. Although absolute monarchies are horrid in that they give no power to the people, they are still simpler than the British monarchy; this makes issues much more difficult to handle in the British monarchy (17). The other problems that Paine has with the British monarchy apply to monarchies at large. Paine argues that the placement of one person above all others is an unnatural divide; there is no explanation for the division of people into “KINGS and SUBJECTS” (22) such as there are in other forms of division that humans live with. If it does not make sense to place one individual above all others, then such should most certainly not be law; therefore, from this logic, monarchy, which is entirely based on the principle of placing one person (and their relatives) above all others, is an invalid and unnatural form of government. Of course, some people could, arguably, have earned the admiration and respect of their peers through important action, and thus be deserving of a leadership position. In a republic, by listening to their electors, the elected earn their right to lead. However, the hereditary monarchy removes this earning of the right to lead, and Paine takes issue with that. There is no guarantee that the descendants of a good leader will also be good leaders, and therefore the government of a country should never be left to heredity (29).

Popular sovereignty means that the people obtain the power of their government. Without the people,

He also stated that people should rise up against tyranny. He said that all men have a duty to disobey bad orders. These ideas are all exemplified in Western culture, where value is placed on effort, and not only and result. The rise against tyranny also affects the establishment of a new type of system, known as democracy.

To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man (...)

“The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual.” (Orwell).

Next. The popular sovereignty is the idea that people are the source of authority and power in the government.’’ He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the right of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolution to cause others to elected’’.

In Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, a boy rebels against his father by climbing up trees, where he spends the rest of his life on, without ever touching the ground again. The philosophical residue is the idea that reason advances the human knowledge, which is a powerful influence to individuals, making people seek for it through books and logic. Accordingly, it is necessary for the improvement of society that it should govern people with justice and reason, not through sovereign authorities.

He openly expressed his distrust of religion, and particularly believed that it had no place in politics, as evidenced by his saying, “It is of no concern in politics whether the ruler has a religion [or not],” (Political Testament, 2). The philosophes of the Enlightenment shared this belief that religion should not be involved in politics; instead, it should be replaced by reason. In contrast, many absolutist rulers believed that their power was God-given: divine-right monarchy. Religion was a major influence on absolutist government. By arguing the importance of applying reason rather than religion to politics, Frederick the Great acted on the enlightened emphasis on reason and rational thinking more than the absolutist focus on religion’s involvement in monarchial

Locke indicates that, by giving up some of one's rights, the state gains legislative power and is obliged to use this power to make laws that benefit the people, who hired it. Locke writes that, "This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it...over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them." (XI 134) Rousseau argues that the state should not be able to acquire legislative power, but simply acts as an executive. He claims that the legislative power comes from the people, for the sovereign is simply the general will of everyone, in which the state should obey and enforce. Rousseau states that, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme control of the general will, and, as a body, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" ( ), showing that the aggregate mind of the people, the general will, has the legislative power as "all" powers are given to it.

In this relationship, the sovereign and government, which I will describe in more detail in the subsequent chapters, are completely separate. The sovereign represents the will of the people and is the legislative power. The government’s duty is to execute

which is false. Humans could be obedient if they trust their ruler and love him.

Spinoza’s philosophy as espoused in the Ethics was a response to Descartes’ dualism. Through works such as the Ethics, Spinoza seeks to address the main flaws in Descartes’ philosophy.

For Aristotle the human is "by nature" destined to live in a political association. Yet not all who live in the political association are citizens, and not all citizens are given equal share in the power of association. The idea of Polity is that all citizens should take short turns at ruling (VII, 1332 b17-27). It is an inclusive form of government: everyone has a share of political power. Aristotle argues that citizen are those who are able to participate in the deliberative and judicial areas of government (III, 1279a32-34). However, not all who live in a political association are citizens. Women, children, slaves, and alien residents are not citizens. Some groups; the rich, the poor, those who