History of Political Theory

FINALS
HISTORY OF
POLITICAL THEORY
Prepared by Raizza P. Corpuz

1. Hobbes and Spinoza
2. The Development of
Constitutionalism
3. Vico and Hume
4. French Thought in the Late 17th
and 18th Centuries
Section XI to XIV

Political Theorists
 1. Hobbes
 2. Spinoza
 3. Coke (Cook)
 4. Harrington
 5. Hooker
 6. Locke
 7. Vico
 8. Hume
 9. Voltaire
 10. Helvetius
 11. Holbach
 12. Bossuet
 13. Montesquieu
 14. Fenelon

HOBBES and SPINOZA
Secularism: no theological
justification
Skepticism: reason and individual
opinion
Man is the creator of his society
Believes in the ultimate power of
the people

Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)
 Wrote Leviathan, explaining the creation and preservation
of an authoritative government
a. Within Leviathan, Hobbes discusses the nature of man,
the state of nature, the social contract, the laws of
nature, political power, liberty and law, and the
sovereign power
b. It is the most logical, systematic treatise in British political
theory
c. Concerns the structure of society. He argues for a social
contract and rule by a sovereign.

 Hobbes neglected the concept of sovereignty
-He rejects Cartesian dualism and believes in the mortality of soul.
 -rejects free will in favor of determinism, a determinism which treats
freedom as being able to do what one desires.
 -He says that men in a state of nature, that is a state without civil
government, are in a war of all against all in which life is hardly
worth living.
 -The way out of this desperate state is to make a social contract and
establish the state to keep order and peace.
 -Because of his view of how nasty life is without the state, Hobbes
subscribes to a very authoritarian version of the social contract.
 -He believed that humans were basically selfish creatures who would
do anything to better their position.
-People should not be trusted to make their own decisions.
 -despite his distrust of democracy, Hobbes believed that a diverse
group of representatives presenting the problems of the common
person would prevent a king from being cruel and unfair.

The Nature of Man
 He believed that the state power was a “mortal god to
which we owe under the immortal God our peace and
defense”
 Man desires power overall; riches, knowledge and
honor are but different forms of power
 That which men desire, they are also said to love; and to
hate those things for which they aversion. Because the
constitution of a man's body is in continual mutation, it is
impossible that all the same things should always cause in
him the same reaction
 The passions that most of all cause the difference of wit
are the desire of power, of riches, of knowledge, and of

 All of these can be reduced to the first, desire of power, for the rest are
but several sorts Of power
 There is a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless
desire of power after power, that ceases only in death
 This is not only because man wants more and more power, but also
because he cannot
assure the power and means to live well
 Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavors to assuring
power at home by laws,
and abroad by wars
 Competition of riches, honor, command, or other power, inclined to
contention, enmity, and war: because the way of one competitor, for
attaining his desire, is to kill, subdue supplant, or repel the other

The State of Nature
 All men are created equal
 3 causes of quarrel: Competition,
Diffidence (Quietness), Glory
 Defines war as: the time during which man
lives without a common power , All other
times are peace

 Nature made men equal, in the faculties of body and
mind; as that though there be found one man stronger in
body or quicker in mind than another
 For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength
enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination,
or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger
as himself
 Therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which
nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become
enemies; and in the way to their end endeavor to destroy,
or subdue one another
And because of this, there is no way for any man to secure himself
There are three principal causes of quarrel
The first is competition
The second is safety
The third is glory or reputation

The Social Contract
 All men should be able to live without anything impeding their
natural liberties
 The right of nature is the liberty each man has to use his own
power as he chooses, for
preservation of his own life
 Liberty is the absence of external impediments
A Law of Nature is a general rule, found out by reason, by
which a man is forbidden to do, which is destructive to his life, or
takes away the means of preserving it
 One general rule of reason is "that every man ought to
endeavor peace as far as he has
hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that
he may seek, and use all helps and advantages of war"

Laws of Nature
 We are obligated to transfer our natural liberties to
our rights
Men perform their covenants made
 Men will follow through with their promises
 The laws of nature are immutable and eternal; for
injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity,
acceptation of persons and the rest, can never be
made lawful; For it can never be that war shall
preserve life, and peace destroy it

Political Power
 Greatest of human powers is: that which is compounded by the
powers of many men
 He states the laws of nature: Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy
And do unto others what you would have them do unto you
 He details a sovereign and a commonwealth
 He supports monarchal sovereignty because it keeps society
stable

 The greatest of human powers, is that which is compounded of
the powers of most men, united by consent, in one person, natural,
or civil, that has the use of all their powers
depending on his will; such is the power of the
commonwealth
 A commonwealth is when a multitude of men are made one person,
when they are by one
man, or one person, represented
 The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to
defend the multitude from
the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and
thereby secure them, is to confer all their power and strength upon
one man, or upon an assembly of men
 The commonwealth has power over everything
 A sovereign power, whether monarchy or commonwealth is

 The care of the sovereign is to make good laws
1. A good law does not mean a just law, for all laws are just
2. A good law is one that is needful, for the good of the
people
Therefore a law that is not needful is not a good law
*** A law may be conceived to be good, when it is done for the
benefit of the sovereign; though it be not necessary for the
people;
The good of the sovereign and people cannot be separated

Liberty and Law
 States that subjects should remain faithful until the sovereign
loses the power to protect his subjects
Liberty defined as:
 “A freeman is he that in those things which by his strength
and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a
will to”
e.g the TRAFFIC LIGHT
The movie Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
The question; How do you know the difference between the
dream world and the real world?
Material World and Mental World : all that we can perceive
is merely the internal activity of our own mind
The nature of Conflict : social strife follows from the
inherently subjective character of moral convictions

The Sovereign Power
 Sovereign’s power should be supreme
All subjects must follow civil laws
Civil law: Those rules which the
commonwealth hath commanded him, by word,
writing, to make use at, for the distinction of
right, and wrong; that is to say, of what is
contrary, and what is not contrary to their rule
 Subjects have to follow the rules of the
sovereign in order to have a stable society

Leviathan
 The basis for agreement between men was not
their common possession of reason
 Any valid explanation of society and
government must take account of the real
nature of man
 Man was the creator of his own society
 Man was motivated by his appetites, desires,
fear, and self-interest, seeking pleasure
and avoiding pain
 Since the powers men had were essentially
equal, there was a natural strife as men sought

 To escape this intolerable situation, where every
individual lived for himself, and to obtain peace and
order, men agreed to form a society
 Men surrendered their rights of self-assertion in
order to set up a power capable of enforcing its
authority
 They gave up their rights to defend themselves,
made a social contract and created a
sovereign order was secured by this sovereign

Summary
 English Philosopher
 Influenced by the English Civil War & Charles I Execution
 1651 – Published Leviathan (Sea Monster)
 Argued that natural law made absolute monarchy the best form
of gov’t
 Humans were natural selfish and violent
 People couldn’t make their own decisions
 If they did life would be “nasty, brutish, and short”
 Only a strong ruler (Leviathan) could give people direction

Thus,
 Leviathan was written during the English Civil
War; much of the book is occupied with
demonstrating the necessity of a strong
central authority to avoid the evil of discord
and civil war.
 In particular, the doctrine of separation of
powers is rejected: the sovereign must
control civil, military, judicial and
ecclesiastical powers.
 Right diagnosis - wrong solution.

RATIONALISM
 The doctrine that knowledge is acquired by
reason without resort to experience.

Spinoza was no stranger to
religious persecution.
 As is well known, he was himself
excommunicated from the Jewish community
in Amsterdam in 1656.
 Spinoza's Political Treatise is patterned to
Machiavellian insights and recommendations.
 Spinoza mimics Machiavelli's critique of
utopian theorizing, elevating statesmen over
philosophers
 Focused on constitutional theorizing
 The concept of naturalism is the basis of
Spinoza Political Theory

 He exclude the transcendental conception of
GOD imagine the power of God to be like the
authority of royal majesty, and the power of
nature to be like a force and impetus
 but IT IS NOT of is not a transcendent
legislator, God is nature itself.

Naturalism as Political Theory
 Spinoza's naturalism entails that all claims of
entitlement deriving from God's will are
unfounded.
 humans act contrary to nature when they act
contrary to the prescripts of right reason.
 Spinoza attacks this view, according to which “the
ignorant violate the order of nature rather than
conform to it; they think of men in nature as a
state within a state [imperium in imperio]”
 It is precisely this position that Spinoza undercuts
when he writes in the Ethics that “the laws and
rules of Nature…are always and everywhere
the same”.

“Might Makes Right”
 Spinoza rejects the natural law tradition
 confusing term if he is redefining right in terms
of power, offering a new normative standard;
rather, it is intended as a denial of any
transcendental standard of justice
 Spinoza puts forth his naturalistic program,
beginning with the premise that the state, like
everything else, is a natural thing (res naturalis),
governed by the laws of nature

Summary:
 The true purpose of the state is in fact freedom
 Authority in sacred matters belongs wholly to
the sovereign powers
 Supreme master of your own mind

Theologian Contribution to Political
Thought
 Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity
comprising the Church of England and churches
which are historically tied to it or hold similar
beliefs, worship practices and church structures
(was coined to describe the common religious
tradition of these churches)
 The Anglican view of politics, when the world was
supposedly secularizing, was that their
particular religion had to be protected, and
that meant the people had some power over
the man who would lead them.

 The power of Parliament over the king, in
extreme situations, was effected by Anglicans.
In the modern world, we consider it a basic
right to choose our rulers, but we would not
have it without the indignance of faithful
Anglicans who were involved in politics –
Bryan (Zerys), expert in Religion and
Theology

He believes in the great
constitutional importance
 The Concept of Prohibitions
The English legal system included not only
common law courts but church courts (of which
High Commission was the most powerful) and
Chancery (a court of equity).
 Coke struggled for jurisdiction (and fees) with
these other courts, and objected to the High
Commission's use of the oath ex officio (which
infringed common law rules against self-
incrimination).

The most important of the common
law theorists was Sir Edward Coke
 He was widely recognized by contemporaries
as the greatest living lawyer.
 he was steadily promoted, becoming Solicitor
General in 1592, Attorney General in 1593,
and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
in 1606; in 1613 he was transferred to the
Chief Justiceship of the King's Bench, which
was technically a promotion but meant a drop
in salary..

Custom, common law and
constitutionalism
 Common lawyers were important in English society -
they made up a large proportion of those sitting in the
House of Commons.
 Sir Edward Coke and many other common lawyers
shared a political ideology based on the notion that
ancient custom (as interpreted by common lawyers)
was superior to the king and to all other forms of law.
 Common law thinking was a largely conservative
ideology designed to protect the status quo from the
intrusion of government and was as opposed to
doctrines of popular sovereignty as to those of royal
absolutism

His Stance…..
 For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua
cuique tutissimum refugium"[and his home his
safest refuge].“
 Magna Carta is such a fellow that he will have
no sovereign." (another and perhaps more
accurate version has "no saving," but since he
was discussing a proposal to make a "saving"
or exception to Magna Carta in favor of the
king's sovereign power, the difference in sense
is slight).

 Coke's frequent opposition and general
audacity exasperated James, who believed
that the King's Chief Justices should share the
King's interests, and in 1616 he dismissed
Coke from the judiciary.
 Coke continued to oppose many crown
policies - he was imprisoned after the
Parliament of 1621, and took a major part in
drawing up the Petition of Right.

Common law theory
 Common Law was essentially time-
honored customs. Even Magna Carta was viewed
as a codification and confirmation of earlier
customs rather than original legislation.
 saw these customs as essentially unchanged from
the earliest times;
 It was accepted that Parliament could add to or
amend inconvenient customs, but some common
lawyers thought that even parliamentary
legislation should be ignored by judges if it
directly contravened custom on fundamental
points.
 Common law was superior to statute because
many generations of English people had found
it useful.

Common law was also
essentially rational
 Its defenders insisted that common law reflected
essentially reasonable decisions.
 Because common law combined custom and
reason, special training was needed to
understand its logic or maxims, what Coke called
"artificial reason".
 common law thinking was deployed to limit
royal power - and particularly to
protect property and individual rights.
 The most central contention was that common law
protected the freedom of English people from laws
and taxes to which they had not consented.

 Common lawyers were in some ways very
conservative - they wished to enforce customary
limitations on royal power, not to invent new ones,
and certainly not actively to resist the monarch.
 Yet the common law maxim rex nihil potest nisi
quod jure potest (the king can do nothing
except what he can do by law; the king can do
no wrong) was applied to mean that the king's
personal orders should be disobeyed if they were
contrary to law.
 The customs officers who tried to collect extra-
parliamentary customs duties in 1629 were
prosecuted by the House of Commons despite the
fact that they had clearly been acting on royal
orders..

RICHARD
HOOKER
LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL
POLITY

RICHARD HOOKER
 March 1554, Heavitree, Exeter, Devon,
England
 John Hooker (chamberlain of Exeter)
John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford Richard
became a fellow of the society (1577).
 Edwin Sandys, bishop of London, ordained
him as a priest on August 14, 1579.

RICHARD HOOKER
 preacher at Paul’s Cross (1581); offended the
Puritans
 “Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity”
(March 1586)
 married Jean Churchman (1588)
 November 3, 1600, Bishopsbourne, Kent

LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY
(Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie)
 best known work of Richard Hooker
 Hooker’s major work
 FOCAL SUBJECT: proper governance of
churches
 The corporal metaphor

LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY
(Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie)
 The Laws of Reason
 Reason is the director
of man’s Will.
 The voice of Nature is
but God’s instrument.
 Laws are investigable
by Reason, without the
help of Revelation.
 No man can ever
reject these Laws.
 Civil Society
 We seek communion and
fellowship with others in order
to supply our defects and
imperfections.
 Two Foundations:
a) A natural inclination
b) Law of a Commonwealth
(common welfare; the
public good) – the very
soul of a politic body
 “… to live by one man’s will
became the cause of all men’s
misery.”

THE
COMMONWEALTH
OF OCEANA
By JAMES HARRINGTON

• 3 January 1611 – 11 September 1677
• English political theorist of classical republicanism
• best known for his controversial work, The
Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)
2 Kinds of Government : De Jure and De Facto

The Commonwealth of Oceana
on 1656. This work was an
exposition on an ideal
constitution, designed to
facilitate the development of
a utopian republic.

De Jure
 It is the empire of the laws and not of men.
 Legitimate / Legal
 Product of a legal process

De Facto
 It is the empire of men and not of laws.
 Illegitimate / Illegal
 Force, violence or intimidation

Principles of Government
 Internal or the Goods
of the Mind
 Natural or Acquired Virtues
 Answers authority
• External or the Goods
of Fortune
o Riches
o Power or Empire

Components
 Element of power in state is property.
 Executive power

Highlights
Agrarian law
Election through balloting
Equality

Equal Commonwealth
 3 orders
o the senate debating and proposing
o the people resolving
o the magistracy executing by an equal rotation
through the suffrage of the people given by
the ballot.

Equal Agrarian
 A perpetual law establishing and
preserving the balance of dominion by
such a distribution.

JOHN LOCKE’S
POLITICAL THEORY

 He used many of his ideas concerning epistemological
stance to back up his political theories.
 Reading different articles, writings about him states that
many writer thought that he contradicts himself in his
work.
 Knowledge was not innate nor revealed, nor resting on
authority.
* Any state is better than anarchy.
* Power comes from the people, rulers were agents acting
in the common good.
* Political rights are not given to the property less.
* Men being by nature all free, equal, and independent, no
one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the
political power of another without his consent

The State of Nature
 Naturally all men are in a state of
equality; without subordination or
subjection
 They should have the freedom to do
their actions and use their possessions
as they see fit
-no person should have more than
another
 It states that everyone is equal and they

Property
 Every man has the right to own his own property
*the labour of his body and of his hands are
properly his
 Men can own land but it has limits also
*as much land as a man can work himself is his
"Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or
destroy"

Civil Society
 People in the society have liberty but there
cannot be liberty without laws.
 Liberty is acting accordingly to a man’s own will
and instructed by laws.
 that people in society have liberty but there
cannot be liberty without laws

Social Contract
 In order for man to live in society together, all the
men must agree live by the same rules.
-The original contract is agreed on during the first
entering into the community.
-A son doesn't necessarily receives his father's
possessions unless he is part of this community.
 in order for man to live in society, he must live by the
same rules as everyone else

The End of Society and
Government
 Fears and continuous danger makes man want to enter a
government, although he is free
 The legislature is directed to carry out the laws in order to
secure safety peace of the people
The Legislature Power
-The legislature is the supreme power of the
commonwealth but it has limitations as well.
- the government that protects them, in order to keep it
running
-The society must pay taxes pay taxes. ( a majority
consent)

The Separation of Power
 -The making and executing the laws
needs to be separate because there is
much power in the hands of man to
have power over the people. (executive,
federative, and legislative)
 the power of the people
-If society is unhappy with the
legislature, they can reform it

The Possibility of Resistance
 Once a government or legislature is
established a society there will always
be a need for it.
-The commonwealth or the people who
give it form, life, and liberty.
-The government may dissolve is the
supreme executive power neglects and
abandons the governmental laws.

Summary
 English Philosopher
 Inspired by the Glorious Revolution
 1690 – published Two Treatises on Government
 People shaped by their experiences not natural
violent
 All people had 3 natural rights – life, liberty, &
property
 People are born with a “tabula rasa” or clean
slate.
 Purpose of gov’t = serve the people – people
have the right to overthrow the gov’t if it is not
serving its purpose
 Social Contract – agreement b/w ruler & people

DAVID HUME: INTEREST
AND POLITICAL
OBLIGATION
“… it is from the selfishness and confined
generosity of man, along with the scanty
provision nature has made for his wants,
that justice derives its origin…”

David Hume
- writer
- economist
- historian
- philosopher
Major Philosophical Works:
Treatise of Human Nature
Enquiries Concerning Human
Understanding
Political Discourses

DAVID HUME
 Wrote no systematic work on politics but his
essays an philosophical works are full of
valuable insights into political problems.
 Foundation of science of politics: political
behavior through empirical statements and
logical reasoning.•“ All rules were made to deal with
human needs.”
•Hume attacked the contract theory
and believed that the society is a
result of convenience, needs, and
passion of men.

OPINION
Opinion of
Right
Right to
Power
Right to
Property
Opinion of
Interest
By Opinion of
Interest, I
understand the
sense of general
advantage
reaped from the
government
together with the
persuasion that
the government
established is
equally
advantageous.

Secondary
Principles of
Government:
Self- interest
Fear
Affection

 A government may endure even though the
balance of power and balance of property do not
coincide.
 A Convention entered into by all members of the
society can bestow stability on the possession
of others and leave everyone in peaceable
enjoyment of what he may acquire.
Justice takes rise from
human conventions.

Qualities
of the
mind:
Selfish
Limited
generosity
“If men were supplied with
everything in the same
abundance, justice and injustice
would be unknown.”
-HUME

DUTIES OF A
RULER
Francois Fenelon

Who is Fenelon?
 Born in 1651. Archbishop of Cambrai and tutor to
Duke of Burgundy, grandson of King Louis XIV and
second in line to the throne.

The Adventure of
Telemachus
 A novel set in a fictional Homeric World.
Published in 1699. Written for his royal pupil.
 Telemachus is an example of “specula principium”
or mirrors for princes.
 While Telemachus is in search of his father Ulysses, the
young prince is constantly lectured about his future
duties as sovereign of Ithaca by Minerva, who has taken
the human form of Mentor, and whose alter ego is not
Minerva but Fenelon himself.
 While recounting Telemachus travel, Fenelon takes
ample time to denounce the evil of luxury and war.

Luxury & War
•If people are allowed to live in abundance, they will
stop working and become proud, undisciplined and
apt to revolt.
•Two grievances in government: (1) unjust and violent
authority assumed by kings; (2) luxury, which corrupts
manners.
•The envy and restlessness associated with luxury
seem to increase the chance of an actual outbreak of

What the authority of the King
consisted?
 Absolute authority over the subject but absolute
authority of the LAW over him.
LAW – the wisdom and equity on one shall be the
happiness of many, not the slavery of many shall
gratify the luxury and pride of one.
 Power to do good is unlimited but restrained from
doing evil.
 He should indulge himself less in pleasure and
should be less disposed to the pride of life than any
other man. He should be distinguished from the rest
of mankind by superior wisdom and heroic virtue and
not by wealth or variety of enjoyments.

consisted?
 Abroad: the defender of his country by
commanding his armies.
At home: the judge of his people, distributing
justice among them, improving morals and
increasing felicity.
 To public he owes all his time, attention and love.
He deserves dignity only in proportion as he gives
up his private enjoyment for the public good.
 The proof of abilities in a King as a supreme
governor does not consist in doing everything
himself; an idle hope.

consisted? Think, to form great designs, make choice of men
properly qualified to carry them into execution; his
abilities will appear in the conceptions of his designs
and choice of instruments.
 The perfection of supreme government consists in the governing of
those that govern. The King should correct, encourage
and raise them, and keep them under his eyes and
hands.
 A King that busies himself in doing the duties of his
servants is always determined by present
appearances and never extends his views to futurity.
 The King is he who meditates, looks forward to the future
and back to the past, sees relative proportions,
arranges all things in order, and whose mind is night
and day that anticipates all events.

 Francois-Marie Arouet – known as
Voltaire
 French Philosopher
 Wrote many novels, plays, letters, &
essays that brought him fame
 Strong dislike of Catholic Church
 Blame the church for keeping
knowledge from people to keep its
power
 Freedom of Religion
 Natural Law runs the world
Prepared by Raizza P. Corpuz © 2015

BARON DE
MONTESQUIEU
Spirit of Laws

 1. Laws are relative to the particular country.
 2. Laws cannot be absolute:
 3. Laws cannot be universal
 State: depends on the climate; climate affects
laws.
 Laws: are relative to particular government
cannot be universal
cannot be absolute
 Climate- affects our customs, laws, and religion

Epikea Dura Lex Sed Lex
Epikea – Spirit of the Law
Lex – Strictly; letter of the law
“the law maybe harsh but it is a
law”.
Basic Principle: Justice

 *Universal but different application
 *Laws always vary to one country to the another
 All laws depend on morality
- based ethics of morality
- do good avoid evil
 “Depends upon the definition”
Ex: Abortion. Though shall not kill : U.S. & Phil.
 General Principle the Same
Ex. “Though shall not kill”
 Laws – depends / differ from 1 country to one
another.

 Inspired by the Glorious Revolution & John Locke,
Greek Philosophers
 French Philosopher
 1748 – published – Spirit of Laws
 Separation of Power – equal divide power among
the 3 Branches of gov’t
 Executive (Monarch) enforce laws, Legislative
(Parliament) makes laws, Judicial (Courts)
interpret laws
 By separating these powers, gov’t could not
become too powerful – checks and balances

Montesquieu’s 3 branches in
Action

Political Theory
 It all started as a concept but it will always be a
remarkable step of action
 There is no end if there is no beginning and
there is no foundation without the abstraction
of theoretical pursuit.
 Keep on theorizing, keep the essence of
critical thinking….

References
 GPT Michael Curtis
 Some slides excerpt from FS Students Batch
2017
 Political Theories

History of Political Theory

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