The, By David Hume

The book Common Sense by Thomas Paine was an American pamphlet written during the American Revolution, which was around the time when America was trying to gain independence from Britain. Paine discusses government, religion, and colonial issues. In the first chapter Paine differentiates between the society and the government. He described the society as being positive and constructive and he described the government being a necessary evil. Meaning the colonist needed to have some form of government to protect themselves from the basic rights. Paine also confronts the British government saying that their government is far too complicated and controversial, and that it would eventually cause problems for the colonists and the hierarchies. He makes up a pretend situation with a group of people on an island who are cut off from the general population. After developing relationships with one another the lawmaking portion becomes unavoidable. Paine says the people will be better off if they make up the rules they have to abide by instead of having set rules the King comes up with himself.

In his text, The Republic, Plato leads us through an elaborate thought experiment in which he creates the ideal city. Throughout The Republic Plato constructs the laws and societal structures of what he deems will lead to a high functioning society. He names this city Kallipolis. A cornerstone of Kallipolis’ structure is Plato’s principle of specialization. The Principle of Specialization argues that each member of society must do the job in which he is best suited. Plato explains “The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.” (Plato, 370c) Therefore,

Common Sense was written by Thomas Paine and published in 1776. Paine wrote it as a plea for the American people to break away from Britain and to declare independence from the king. He was asking his audience to take a step back and see that just because something is tradition, does not mean it is necessarily right. Paine wanted to show his readers that government and society is not the same thing, which is how most people viewed it. Society was something that people should want to have, while a government is something that people had to have in order to keep themselves in check. That by paying the various taxes, the people were inadvertently paying to live in such bad conditions. America should break away from and form a democratic party, one that allowed the people to decide what rules they should have. Britain was too far away to be able to rule the colonies correctly. That in being so far away it would take forever for Parliament to respond to any complaints that America might have. Britain was not a favorite with other countries and therefore the colonies were at a greater risk of war because of it. He spoke to his readers in a way so that even the simplest of people would understand how desperately America needed to establish its independence.

Throughout the novel Common Sense, Thomas Paine is very transparent with his views on British parliament and their what seems to be never ending control over the colonies. He emphasizes that the American colonies must gain their independence in order for them to progress as a whole. When talking about the system of the British parliament, Paine states “Absolute governments have this advantage with them, that they are simple…But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies…” Additionally, he shows his disapproval for the British parliament because he believes the system is unreasonable and puts on a façade as if they were.

In the tumultuous early months of 1776 a Colonial political theorist named Thomas Paine began anonymously publishing a treasonous pamphlet urging colonists to seek independence from the Crown. The concise volume titled Common Sense advocated a revolution in emphatic yet simple language intended for all levels of Colonial society. Paine was highly successful in appealing to the every man, and Common Sense spread quickly across the country. It was so influential and widely read that it is commonly credited by modern historians as being one of the single most powerful catalysts of the American Revolution, a publication so incendiary that John Adams remarked “without the pen of the author of Common Sense the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”

We can find such a brief survey in the trichotomy of object evaluation offered by novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. For Rand, values, be they concerning ethics or anything that can be evaluated, are predicated upon standards which can be classified as either intrinsic, subjective, or objective; in other words, evaluations of anything draw from that which collapses into these three distinct categories of judgment.

Embedded in the human spirit is the notion that people possess an innate sense of being an individual, free to think, act, and understand the world surrounding them. In George Orwell’s 1984, individuality is removed to support the Party’s abilities in controlling and exploiting the masses. Yet, despite their success in suppressing the citizens of Oceania there is something rooted in humanity that although can be repressed, still remains implanted within the deepest parts of a person’s mind. In the novel, while the Party attempts to annihilate all human instincts in order to acquire pure and absolute power, it is unknown to them that despite their best efforts there lies something much more dominant in the human mind which although can be inhibited may never be entirely eliminated. As Winston ponders revolutionary ideas, his physical body unknowing to his conscious mind, is complacent with his innermost thoughts to rebel in any way possible. Winston’s thoughts of unorthodoxy become enhanced through Julia because he discovers someone who desires and understands him, conjuring up something instinctual in him which has been waiting to be released. To care and protect someone else becomes instinctive when he/she experiences suffering or pain and this kind of understanding is acknowledged through the only people Winston believes express any sanity in a corrupt world: the proletarians. A person’s impulse to resist an oppressive nature is instinctual and this is validated through

Religion is a perilous subject, regardless of who you choose to discuss it with; everyone has their stance about it. In the pamphlet ‘The Age of Reason’ by Thomas Paine, the author offers his perspective of religion in which he provides factual arguments as to why he despises it and refutes its ‘message’. Paine challenges the authenticity of the Bible while also addressing its contradictions, inconsistencies and false claims. From the moment it was published, Paine knew the pamphlet would cause controversy simply by the nature of which it is based upon. Paine openly and willfully ridicules the church, the mythology of the church, the word of God and the legitimacy of the authority of which the Bible has ascribed certain individuals to. The pamphlet itself is dichotomized as follows: section one and section two. Section one consists of Paine loosely planting the roots of his arguments and satirically dissecting the basis of religion. Section two provides a close examination of the New and Old Testament where Paine directly addresses the contradictions, logical inconsistencies and empirical falsehoods of the Bible and its many books and anecdotes that will be discussed in this essay. Although some may feel offended by the nature of the pamphlet and its contents, Paine does not set out to force a conversion or instill his philosophical state of mind upon others, he simply strives to ventilate his beliefs and disbeliefs.

Thomas Paine, an English political philosopher and writer made his way to the colonies when his good friend, Benjamin Franklin convinced him to do so. He worked as an editor for the Pennsylvania Magazine. Although, published anonymously in 1776, Paine was the man behind Common Sense, a political pamphlet that was distributed between all the colonies and challenged the British government by suggesting American Independency. Paine wrote the Common Sense because in his mind he believed change needed to happen or that eventually change would come. He wanted to inform the common people of this possible independence , motivate them and wake them up from the existing dangers of staying under Great Britain.

J. L. Mackie makes his position explicit by opening his article "The Subjectivity of Values" with this terse statement: "There are no objective values." Mackie had found recent dialogue in moral philosophy to be fraught with misunderstandings and conflations of various moral positions, so he felt it necessary to rigorously define his position as well as the boundaries of his concerns. Thus his article has two major parts: First, Mackie defines the nature of his moral skepticism, and, second, he defends his position by showing the implausibility of moral realism with a series of arguments.

     Knowledge is gained only through experience, and experiences only exist in the mind as individual units of thought. This theory of knowledge belonged to David Hume, a Scottish philosopher. Hume was born on April 26, 1711, as his family’s second son. His father died when he was an infant and left his mother to care for him, his older brother, and his sister. David Hume passed through ordinary classes with great success, and found an early love for literature. He lived on his family’s estate, Ninewells, near Edinburgh. Throughout his life, literature consumed his thoughts, and his life is little more than his works. By the age of 40, David Hume had been employed twice and had failed at the family careers,

In Plato’s, “The Republic,” Socrates mediates conversation, as he challenges himself, and those around him to arbitrate the value of justice and conceptualize the significance that it holds for both the individual and the state. Throughout books I to VI, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adameitus constructively develop a sense of justice through argument and the formation of an ideal state. However, this embodiment reaches a deadlock in the middle of book V when Socrates pronounces that everything discussed thus far is nothing but an ideology, unless a philosopher king is manifested.

“Since there’s no clear way to resolve moral differences, there can’t be objective moral truths” (Shafer-Landau, P. 205). Every single difference can’t be resolved, but some may be. There are times were there is definitely no way to justify moral truths but that does not mean there are no such truths. “So there could be objective moral truths, even if we had no solid way to know them” (Shafer-Landau, P. 206). Therefore, Ima Relativist’s arguments against objective values failed.

Anscombe argues that the word ‘ought’ in the sense of ‘morally ought’ has a ‘mere mesmeric force’ and suggests that it contains ‘no intelligible thought at all’. She claims that ‘it is not profitable to do moral philosophy’. She sees that to clarify what morally means in terms of what a being ought to do is nonsensical. She says that modern philosophers see a parallel between ‘intellectual virtues’ and a ‘moral aspect’. For these reasons, she discounts

Wars, death, and other acts of violence have all been part of a process to attain true freedom. However, what is true freedom? John Stuart Mill and Georg Hegel tackle this notion of freedom. Mills states that freedom is when individuals have unlimited liberty, while Hegel says that is a false freedom. He states that freedom is when the individual’s morals align with external laws within the nation state. Despite what many say freedom is more similar in Hegel’s and Mills than different. We can see this through Hegel’s notion of absolute mind and Mill’s value of liberty and notion of diversity.