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Democracy and the Problem of Civil Disobedience
In: American political science review, Band 48, Heft 2, S. 386-403
ISSN: 1537-5943
If Sophocles were alive today to recast the dilemma of Antigone in contemporary, if less sanguine, terms, he might well seize on the problem of the citizen who refuses to answer questions put to him by a congressional investigating committee. Antigone, you will recall, was torn between two loyalties. Her religion commanded her to bury the body of her brother, while her state commanded that his body be left, unburied and unmourned, to be eaten by dogs and vultures on the open plain outside the city walls. As a loyal citizen, Antigone was required to yield her conscience to the state, to guide her conduct not by her rational moral knowledge but by the precepts of the law. As a person bound to her kin by the dictates of her religion, she was required to subordinate the instructions of Creon the king to those of her faith. She chose to obey her conscience and paid the penalty. Socrates, who—according to a traditional interpretation of the Crito—would doubtless have counseled otherwise, was also executed by the state. Thoreau, who at a critical moment followed what has scornfully been termed "the primitive attitude of Antigone, rather than the mature comprehension of Socrates," found that refusal to obey a law resulted not in loss of life but in temporary loss of physical freedom.
The Place of the Humanities in Medical Education
A CAJM article on the role of humanities in medical science. ; The word science is derived from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. There are many compartments of science such as moral, political and natural, but the word "science" in its modern sense means an organised body of knowledge. Natural science is that which comes from awareness of the material environment in which we live. It is gained firstly by observation and also from the results of experiments which may be defined as situations planned to test the truth of an hypothesis. The words "truth" and "logic" prepare us for the idea of the "scientific method," which is a system of accurate reasoning whereby knowledge becomes objectively exact.
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On the Christian Idea of Man
In: The review of politics, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 3-16
ISSN: 1748-6858
The second partof the Summa Theologica of the "Universal Doctor," Thomas Aquinas, begins with the following sentence: Because man has been created in God's image, now after having spoken of God, the archetype, we must still deal with His image which is man. (Summa Theologica I, II, Prologus.) There is something peculiar about this sentence; its meaning must not be misunderstood. It is stated as a matter of fact but its meaning is not to be taken for granted. This first sentence of Moral Theology expresses a fact which has almost entirely disappeared from the knowledge of Christians of today; namely, die fact that moral doctrine is primarily and above all a doctrine about man; that moral doctrine must plainly reveal the conception of man, and that, therefore, the doctrine of Christian morals must concern the Christian model of man. This fact was a matter of course in' the Christianity of the high Middle Ages. This fundamental conception—which, to be sure, was not definitely taken for granted as the polemical wording shows—compelled Eckhart to say two generations after St. Thomas: people should not think about what they ought to do, they should rather think about what they ought to be.
The political philosophy of Hobbes: its basis and its genesis
In: Phoenix books
In this classic analysis, Leo Strauss pinpoints what is original and innovative in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He argues that Hobbes's ideas arose not from tradition or science but from his own deep knowledge and experience of human nature. Tracing the development of Hobbes's moral doctrine from his early writings to his major work The Leviathan, Strauss explains contradictions in the body of Hobbes's work and discovers startling connections between Hobbes and the thought of Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel.
Modernization and Conditions of Sustained Growth
In: World politics: a quarterly journal of international relations, Band 16, Heft 4, S. 576-594
ISSN: 1086-3338
The nature of modern society, the quality of the modern social, civil, and moral order, has been in the forefront of sociological thought and inquiry since the very beginning of sociology. This interest has been greatly reinforced by the growing preoccupation with the extension of the processes of modernization beyond their initial place of origin in Western Europe and the United States to Eastern Europe and later to Asian and African countries. The continuous processes of modernization in these societies have greatly added to the store of knowledge about the nature and variety of modern society, and they also have enabled us to reformulate many of the most crucial problems in this area.
Transportation as a Factor in Economic Growth
In: The journal of economic history, Band 7, Heft S1, S. 72-88
ISSN: 1471-6372
To discuss the influence of one type of economic activity such as transportation on economic growth is a hazardous undertaking. There is the obvious temptation, which has led many astray, to magnify the importance of that which is particularized. Such a characterization as "Transportation a Measure of Civilization" or the assertion that the railway "is a revolution among nations … [a] moral revolution … affecting the diffusion of knowledge, the interchange of social relations, the perpetuation of peace, the extension of commerce; and a revolution in all the relations of property," is hardly impartial or balanced with respect to the whole picture of economic activity. A prime objective of this paper is to avoid the dominant parochial note in appraisals of transportation's contributions to economic growth and to present instead thoroughly critical analysis.
On the Nature of Political Science
In: American political science review, Band 55, Heft 4, S. 773-779
ISSN: 1537-5943
Political activity is dangerous. Arising inevitably out of men's ability to influence each other, conferring upon them the benefits of joint endeavour, an indispensable source of social boons, it is also capable of doing great harm. Men can be moved to injure others or to ruin themselves. The very process of moving implies a risk of debasement for the moved and for the mover. Even the fairest vision of a good to be sought offers no moral guarantee, since it may poison hearts with hatred against those who are deemed an obstacle to its achievement.No apology is required for stressing a subjective dread of political activity: the chemist is not disqualified as a scientist because he is aware that explosives are dangerous: indeed that chemist is dangerous who lacks such awareness.This feeling of danger is widespread in human society and has ever haunted all but the more superficial authors. Although, to be sure, few have, like Hobbes, brought it out into the open, it has hovered in the background, exerting an invisible but effective influence upon their treatment of the subject; it may be, to a significant degree, responsible for the strange and unique texture of political science.There are no objects to which our attention is so naturally drawn as to our own fellows. It takes a conscious purpose to watch birds or ants, but we can not fail to watch other men, with whom we are inevitably associated, whose behaviour is so important to us that we need to foresee it, and who are sufficiently like us to facilitate our understanding of their actions. Being a man, which involves living with men, therefore involves observing men. And the knowledge of men could be called the most fairly distributed of all kinds of knowledge since each one of us may acquire it according to his willingness and capacity.
From Acceptance of Nature to Control: The Demography of the French Canadians Since the Seventeenth Century
In: Canadian journal of economics and political science: the journal of the Canadian Political Science Association = Revue canadienne d'économique et de science politique, Band 23, Heft 1, S. 10-19
Toward the end of Louis Hémon's novel Maria Chapdelaine, which is perhaps the work most representative of traditional French Canadianism, one finds this lyrical passage: "… in the country of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change, because we are a testimony." This was written in 1916, but evidently many things have changed since that time. Economic evolution, urbanization, spread of knowledge, technical progress have greatly modified individual and family life as well as social environment. And these transformations have affected the very core of both French-Canadian society and French-Canadian individuals. As a matter of fact, they have burst the old framework of self-sufficient social life and they have transformed the most fundamental motivations of the individual and of conjugal behaviour. Even in the observance of formal moral rules their impact has been felt. It is not surprising that such changes have affected the demographic pattern to a large extent. Most French-Canadian scholars, social philosophers, and political leaders, who are specially interested in the French-Canadian ethnic group, are relatively unaware of the extent of this demographic change and some would not readily admit it. In this paper, I would like to try to throw some light on the main demographic facts and problems of this evolution or, as one might be tempted to name it, revolution.
ON CULPABILITY AND CRIME: THE TREATMENT OF MENS REA IN THE MODEL PENAL CODE
In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 339, S. 24-41
ISSN: 0002-7162
When conduct has the external attributes of a crime, should further mental elements be required for conviction, & if so, what should they be? Decisions have too frequently been imprecise in analysis & inconsistent in results, yielding a multitude of single instances which in the aggregate dilute the moral force that should attach to condemnation of behavior considered criminal. Criminal liability may justly be based only upon conduct which includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act which the actor was physically able to perform. Act or omission are essential prerequisites to liability, but they are not sufficient to establish culpability. The Model Penal Code (MPC) proposes 4 concepts to describe the kinds of culpability which are sufficient to establish liability: purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence. The doctrine of strict liability, ignorance & mistake of fact, intoxication, & ignorance & mistake of law are pertinent to establishing liability. One of the most contentious problems of the penal law concerns the criteria that should determine when individuals whose conduct would otherwise be criminal ought to be exculpated on the ground that they were suffering from mental disease or defect when they acted. The MPC would exculpate the person who, as a result of mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his behavior to the requirements of law. AA.
Democracy and Destructiveness
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 8-10
ISSN: 1552-3381
Dr. Nathan Leites of the RAND Corporation, author of The Operational Code of the Politburo and other works, is presented here in an article, written in 1949 but hitherto unpublished, on same dynamics of human nature as they relate to democratic beliefs. Dr. Leites asserts, first, that too many discussions of democ racy, including many learned ones, neglect or refuse to put forward their ulti mate preferences for a certain kind of man and society. Ultimate preferences about human nature cannot be challenged by logical empiricism. Ultimate gen eralizations about human nature can be challenged by the so-called scientific method and tested for conformance to events. Secondly, given ultimate preferences about human nature, which are compatible with the scientifically tested limitations of human nature, one may build a "demo eratic" system—that is, a system wherein the environment is guaranteed, to put it exaggeratedly, to produce democratic people conforming to the ultimate preference. Thirdly, the contributions of political scientists to our knowledge of late environ ment, and that of psychologists to early environment, help to tell what is neces sary to adjust men to a society which permits democratic human activities as defined by the irreducible, ultimate preferences on which we may agree! Dr. Leites asserts in conclusion that democracy may be threatened, not only by communist aggression, but by uncontrolled destructiveness or badly controlled destructiveness that results in moral uncertainty and dysfunctions of conscience.
The Significance of The Review of Politics
In: The review of politics, Band 17, Heft 1, S. 24-32
ISSN: 1748-6858
During the past fourteen years, since the entry of the United States into the Second World War, and especially since the end of the war (with its disillusioning peace blending into the so-called cold war), the United States has had thrust upon it the problems of the overwhelming difficulties of world leadership. Leadership in the true sense of the word cannot be totalitarian or authoritarian. It must be intellectual, moral and spiritual. This our leading statesmen have sometimes recognized, though not, I am inclined to think, often enough. In any event, it is in these spheres that our peoples have been perhaps the least prepared for our mission. Even in the natural sciences, one of the principal creative sources of American leadership has been individual scientists—such as Einstein, Fermi and Teller—bom and trained in Europe, who found asylum in the United States from Nazi or Fascist tyranny. In so far as the creative mind and its place in the national life are concerned, our main weakness has not been, however, in the natural sciences. During the first half of the twentieth century in the United States these have become distinguished in their own right. When it comes to the practical application of science we have led the world. In no other country have the results of new scientific knowledge been utilized technologically to produce as high a standard of living, measured in material quantity, as in the United States.
On Culpability and Crime: The Treatment of Mens Rea in the Model Penal Code
In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 339, Heft 1, S. 24-41
ISSN: 1552-3349
When conduct has the external attributes of a crime, should further mental elements be required for convic tion, and, if so, what should they be? Decisions have too frequently been imprecise in analysis and inconsistent in re sults, yielding a multitude of single instances which in the ag gregate dilute the moral force that should attach to condemna tion of behavior considered criminal. Criminal liability may justly be based only upon conduct which includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act which the actor was physically able to perform. Act or omission are essential pre requisites to liability, but they are not sufficient to establish culpability. The Model Penal Code proposes four concepts to describe the kinds of culpability which are sufficient to es tablish liability: purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negli gence. The doctrine of strict liability, ignorance and mistake of fact, intoxication, and ignorance and mistake of law are pertinent to establishing liability. One of the most conten tious problems of the penal law concerns the criteria that should determine when individuals whose conduct would otherwise be criminal ought to be exculpated on the ground that they were suffering from mental disease or defect when they acted. The Model Penal Code would exculpate the person who, as a re sult of mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to con form his behavior to the requirements of law.—Ed.
Dissent on the Supreme Court, 1943–44
In: American political science review, Band 39, Heft 1, S. 42-54
ISSN: 1537-5943
During the 1943–44 term of the Supreme Court, public attention was attracted to that body on several occasions by verbal exchanges in decisions of the Court which seemed unusually sharp and personal. On January 3, 1944, Justices Black and Murphy admonished Justice Frankfurter that "for judges to rest their interpretation of statutes on nothing but their own conceptions of 'morals' and 'ethics' is, to say the least, dangerous business." In another opinion on the same day, the same two judges referred to "what is patently a wholly gratuitous assertion as to constitutional law in the dissent of Mr. Justice Frankfurter." In the Magnolia Petroleum Co. case, Justice Jackson observed that the minority judges were apparently willing to enforce the full faith and credit clause "only if the outcome pleases…." Justice Murphy told the Court on one occasion that it was "rewriting" a criminal statute, Justice Jackson called the decision bringing insurance under the Sherman Act a "reckless" one, and Justice Roberts several times waxed sarcastic about the disregarding or over-ruling of precedents. "This tendency," he said, "indicates an intolerance for what those who have composed this court in the past have conscientiously and deliberately concluded, and involves an assumption that knowledge and wisdom reside in us which was denied to our predecessors." It is not surprising that the newspapers translated these disagreements into personal terms and began to write about the "feud that was smoldering behind the Grecian columns of the white marble court building."There are many reasons for not taking such accounts too seriously. Thomas Reed Powell has wisely warned "laymen … not to draw too broad conclusions from any reportorial propensity to play up judicial disagreements as contests like those in war or sports." Disagreement is no new thing on the Court. The faultless phrasing of the Holmes dissents may have raised to a higher plane, but did not conceal, differences as sharp as any evident during the past term.
Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences
In: Canadian journal of economics and political science: the journal of the Canadian Political Science Association = Revue canadienne d'économique et de science politique, Band 15, Heft 3, S. 299-309
Canadian universities have not been as enterprising as their American neighbours in seeking out new ways of serving the community; but they have deviated far enough from the straight and narrow path of academic scholarship to develop a sense of guilt for which atonement may be offered by devoting a part of their resources to the promotion of graduate studies.In the United States we find a desperate effort being made to save the M.A. degree from the fate which has befallen the B.A. degree, by applying truly heroic remedies, such as insistence on serious qualifications for admission to candidacy, on "graduate standards of attainment," on "proper use of spoken and written English," on "a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language … as indispensable background and not merely as a tool for research." A candidate should have obtained "an average grade which places him in at least the first third of his class" and "due attention should be paid to those qualities known as personality and, in particular, to moral character."A sense of guilt may be a very potent force, but it requires rationalization. Various reasons have been assigned for promoting graduate studies in Canada. Professor Brebner contends that an increased output of scholars, retained in Canada, could be employed in "the creation of Canadian culture." In so doing they would solve what Professor Brebner considers ought to be "the most urgent problem for Canadian post-war planners," namely "how to make Canada so cordial and attractive a place" that Canadians "who excel in any field" will be content to live and work there. It is nearly fifty years since American universities set about the task of meeting "needs for the satisfaction of which approximately 300 out of a total of some 500 advanced students at the time considered it necessary to go abroad." Canadians have continued to pursue graduate studies in other countries, but it is possible to argue that young Canadians cannot rely as much as in the past on the opportunities offered for advanced work at British and American universities.