American Political Philosophy Research Articles

Reading Althusser: Time and the Social Whole

The works of Louis Althusser have influenced political and theoretical debates in Europe for several decades but have remained comparatively untouched by American political philosophers and historians. Perhaps because their style is polemical and frequently obscure, or perhaps because they present a political as well as an intellectual challenge, his views have not been as widely nor as deeply discussed as they deserve to be. This essay is a preliminary response to that problem. I shall try to reconstruct elements of Althusser's writings to capture the force of his arguments regarding the Marxist view of the social whole and the concept of historical time with which it is allied. Accordingly, this paper is both an exposition of Althusser's point of view and an Althusserian account of Marx. In it I hope to show some of the political and theoretical implications of his position. According to Althusser the Marxist conception of society did not arise out of a vacuum but developed from a critique of and break from all previous conceptions of the social whole. His analysis of Marx's conception therefore demands an elaboration of the specific difference between Marx and his predecessors, the most important of whom was Hegel. I This demand is what first requires our attention.

Power, Force and Diplomacy

The present crisis has generated intense debate over the instruments of foreign policy the United States has at its disposal and controversy over their use in particular stages of a dispute or conflict. The debate has centered over the meaning and use of power and force. A little more than a decade ago, writing On Violence in an era when its primary manifestation was within national boundaries, the American political philosopher, the late Hannah Arendt, sought to distinguish between violence and power, saying: “… power always stands in need of numbers, whereas violence up to a point … relies on implements.” Writers differ on concepts such as power and violence. Power for some is conceived as the ability of the individual or the group to impose its will on others. Power for Arendt implied the human ability to act in concert —potestas in populo; without a people or group there is no power in politics. Power for individuals and groups is linked with prestige and authority. In politics, authority requires respect either for a person or an office; its enemy is contempt or laughter directed at the person or office. In both foreign relations and domestic affairs, “violence appears as a last resort to keep … power … intact against individual challengers — the foreign enemy, the native criminal …” or to overthrow authority. It would seem, therefore, that force and violence are the prerequisites of power and power nothing but a facade. In a violent world, it is force that counts not power which is dependent on force.

The Problem of Monopoly Power in Federal Health Policy

Federal programs to regulate health care providers appear to have contradictory objectives, indicating ambivalence toward group power in American political philosophy. The conflict between monopoly-creating monopoly-destroying strategies is demonstrated through three attempts to integrate professional power into a democratic political system.

Neighborhoods and Citizen Involvement

ASPA can have a leading role in helping to change the Man's System. ASPA needs strong minority participation to help build a really long-lasting System that belongs to all of us one which works for minorities, too. Community organizers are concerned with concrete gains. We hope that this article is not simply a futile gesture, a credit on our resumes, or an action which succeeds only in making whites feel momentarily guilty, but not guilty enough to act positively. We want to participate in the strong changeagent role ASPA might play. As pointed out earlier, the name of the game is shared power, how to get it, and how to control community destiny at the local level. This is exactly in the middle of mainstream American political philosophy. ASPA can give the tools and knowledge which would help to effectively distribute that power, to help allocate more fairly those scarce resources. There is so much that ASPA can do. We are proposing that our recommendations be actively pursued by the Society and its local chapters. It has to be done. For a Society with such skills and connections not to help would be disgraceful. We as active members of ASPA would have it no other way. Otherwise, what good is the Society to its members, its clients, and the citizens of our nation? It already has been too late for a long time. We, together, have a lot of work to do to catch up to where we should have been right after the Declaration of Independence.

American higher education in 1990

The Hazards of Prediction Prediction of the shape of higher education over 20 years or more is almost, but not quite, a routine operation. Our vital statistics are good, so that we know how many 20-year olds there will be in 20 years. We have recorded the patterns of educational development, we have plotted the trend lines of needs for skilled manpower, we have all manner of forecasts to rely on, and we can use computers to handle all the variables we can put into our forecasting equation. Hence forecasting the future of education should be almost an exact science. However, for some reason it is not. Ten years ago no American educator made any forecast which even considered the possibility of large-scale federal intervention in American education, perhaps because there was no American political philosophy to justify such intervention. We were, therefore, totally unprepared for the suddenness, strength, and effect of the National Defence Education Act (NDEA), and for the education legislation of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. No one in 1956, when the Supreme Court decision on integration was already two years old, predicted the tremendous changes in educational opportunities for negroes which have now taken form. Nor did any educator then predict that within 10 years we should be in the process of extending education to all Americans from age 4 to age 20, beginning with pre-school and carrying through to the fourteenth grade. In the case of the National Defence Education Act, the unpredicted factor was Sputnik, which frightened the American people into 20 years of growth. In the opening of educational opportunities for the negro, the Montgomery non-violent resistance and the Greenboro sit-ins were a negro statement of the negro case which not only awakened white conscience but also revealed the latent power of the negro as a political force. In the case of the extension of universal education, the unpredicted factor was the documentation of the direct relationship between inadequate education and irremediable poverty which pointed to more and better education as the path to action in making an immediate if indirect attack on poverty.

The Obligation to Disobey

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Obligation to DisobeyMichael WalzerMichael Walzer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 77, Number 3Apr., 1967 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/291630 Views: 30Total views on this site Citations: 23Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1967 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Lukas Slothuus Faith between reason and affect: thinking with Antonio Gramsci, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 22, no.33 (Jun 2021): 340–357.https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1934505Lukas Slothuus Comradely Critique, Political Studies 233 (Aug 2021): 003232172110400.https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211040011Manuel Cervera-Marzal Can We Disobey in Democracy? Three Points of View, Chinese Political Science Review 69 (Jul 2021).https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-021-00185-2Eamon Aloyo, Eugenio Cusumano Morally evaluating human smuggling: the case of migration to Europe, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24, no.22 (Sep 2018): 133–156.https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2018.1525118Itzhak Galnoor, Dana Blander The Handbook of Israel's Political System, 19 (Aug 2018).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316160978Tomas Kucera , Journal of Military Ethics 16, no.1-21-2 ( 2017): 20.https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2017.1342988Candice Delmas Civil Disobedience, Philosophy Compass 11, no.1111 (Nov 2016): 681–691.https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12354Sarah Conly Ethics 1965–90, Ethics 125, no.44 (Oct 2015): 1114–1118.https://doi.org/10.1086/680875KATRINA FORRESTER CITIZENSHIP, WAR, AND THE ORIGINS OF INTERNATIONAL ETHICS IN AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, 1960–1975, The Historical Journal 57, no.33 (Aug 2014): 773–801.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X13000496Candice Delmas Samaritanism and Civil Disobedience, Res Publica 20, no.33 (Jun 2014): 295–313.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-014-9249-7Vanessa Ruget, Burul Usmanalieva How much is citizenship worth? The case of Kyrgyzstani migrants in Kazakhstan and Russia, Citizenship Studies 14, no.44 (Aug 2010): 445–459.https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2010.490038Linda C. Fan, Paul W. Fox Exploring Factors for Ethical Decision Making: Views from Construction Professionals, Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice 135, no.22 (Apr 2009): 60–69.https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1052-3928(2009)135:2(60)Howard Gibson The Teaching of Democracy: Challenging the Meaning of Participation, Discourse and Dissent in the English School Curriculum, Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 8, no.11 (Mar 2009): 5–18.https://doi.org/10.2304/csee.2009.8.1.5Linda Fan, Christabel Ho, Vincent Ng A study of quantity surveyors' ethical behaviour, Construction Management and Economics 19, no.11 (Jan 2001): 19–36.https://doi.org/10.1080/014461901452058Peter Dean A Vision of Integrity and the Mission of Performance Improvement, Performance Improvement Quarterly 10, no.44 (Oct 2008): 3–16.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-8327.1997.tb00064.xJ Angelo Corlett WHAT IS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?, Philosophical Papers 26, no.33 (Jan 2010): 241–259.https://doi.org/10.1080/05568649709506570Joxerrarnon Bengoetxea, Juan Ignacio Ugartemendia Civil disobedience as constitutional Patriotism, Legal Studies 17, no.33 (Jan 2018): 434–447.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-121X.1997.tb00415.xPeter J. Dean A Selected Review of the Underpinnings of Ethics for Human Performance Technology Professionals - Part One: Key Ethical Theories and Research, Performance Improvement Quarterly 6, no.44 (Oct 2008): 3–32.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-8327.1993.tb00603.xGeoffrey B. Levey Judaism and the Obligation to Die for the State, AJS Review 12, no.22 (Oct 2009): 175–203.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009400002002Gerald F. Cavanagh, Dennis J. Moberg, Manuel Velasquez The Ethics of Organizational Politics ,, Academy of Management Review 6, no.33 (Jul 1981): 363–374.https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1981.4285767M. W. Jackson Justifying a duty to disobey, Politics 10, no.11 (Sep 2007): 29–34.https://doi.org/10.1080/00323267508401484Paul F. Power On Civil Disobedience in Recent American Democratic Thought, American Political Science Review 64, no.11 (Aug 2014): 35–47.https://doi.org/10.2307/1955611Glen R. Dey Philosophers, Counselor Educators, And Relevant Questions, Counselor Education and Supervision 8, no.22 (Dec 2011): 135–142.https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6978.1969.tb01315.x

"Exotic Fruit": The Right Against Compulsory Self-Incrimination in Colonial New York

HE Bill of Rights epitomizes one of our history's most noble and enduringly important themes, the triumph of individual liberty, yet has been strangely one of the most neglected subjects. Although constitutional guarantees of personal liberty go to the heart of American political philosophy, there is no satisfactory study of the origins and framing of the first state bills of rights and few studies of particular rights. The American origins of the right against compulsory self-incrimination are especially shrouded in obscurity. That fact is all the more striking because the courts have assured us, again and again, that our understanding in this instance is quite dependent upon Chief Justice Warren, for example, noting that the right against self-incrimination was hard-earned by our forefathers, stated that the reasons for its inclusion in the Constitution-and the necessities for its preservation-are to be found in the lessons of history. 1 However, the lessons of history have hardly been made abundantly clear by historians, despite the reliance of jurists upon them. Over half a century ago when the Supreme Court, in Twvining v. New Jersey, resorted to every historical test by which the meaning of the phrase [self-incrimi-

American Political Philosophy After 1865

American Political Philosophy After 1865

The Negro in the Political Life of the United States

American political philosophy and institutions are rooted in the fertile soil of eighteenth century liberalism. The dominant influence in American thinking at the time of the Revolution was civil libertarianism. This promised much for the status of the individual in the society. The American Revolution, admittedly bourgeois in character, and more a secession than a revolution, revealed a high regard for the rights of property as well as for the rights of the individual. Of greatest significance to the Negro, however, is the fact that this revolt handed down to the American society a constitutional framework that has become a sacred tradition, which embraces fundamental concepts of human equality and human rights. It is within this conceptual milieu, inherited from the American Revolution, that the Negro has carried on his struggles for social, political and economic emancipation. These concepts have given a measure of realism to the Negro's persistent assumption that he is entitled to equal status in the society, that he too has rights that he must fight for, that an individual black citizen is due as full a measure of human dignity as a white one. The Constitution itself, of course, represents a compromise solution between those conflicting groups in the Convention which actually feared democracy as a hydra-headed monster, on the one hand, and those which sincerely subscribed to the principles of fundamental equalitarianism, on the other. The entire constitutional history of the nation has reflected this compromise in the quixotic tendency to sanctify its democratic creeds while stubbornly retaining its racial bigotries. Paradoxical as it may seem in the light of the historical record, however, the fact remains that the Constitution did lay the basis for the most broad ideological pattern of individual human equality, human liberty and human rights that the modern world has known. The goal set for this nation by the Founding Fathers is the attainment of political democracy. It is the people who are to count in this society. Government is to be theirs-of, by and for them-all of them. Perhaps the most serious obstacle to the realization of this ideal goal has been the frailty of those who make up the society: the apathy, prejudices, intolerance, greed, and ignorance of the citizenry. Yet, it is, in a sense, of the essence of democracy that this should be so. This is at once the promise and the hazard of the democratic way. As one author aptly puts it: