The View of Encyclopedia
Rights And Power: We reach here a problem perhaps as difficult as any in the realm of political science. A government, I have argued, is limited by the purposes that it serves. It has no moral authority to act ultra vires those purposes. It has no authority, for instance, to invade the right to freedom … Read more
The Realisation Of Rights: So armed, the citizen might hope to confront the State with at least the prospect of self-realisation. But it, is, of course, one thing to postulate these rights as essential, it is another thing to ensure their realisation. And that raises the central issue of the position of the State in … Read more
Particular rights: Yet all this, it may be said, is to dwell upon the heights of theory. It is one thing to show the notions a State must recognize if it is to move to the achievement of its purpose. It is a very different thing to show how that purpose is in fact to … Read more
Rights And The State: Rights so discussed seem to imply a State and an individual which strike a balance between their mutual claims. This is, in fact, to state the problem of rights in a fashion too narrow to express with accuracy the environment we encounter. For it is not merely as a member of … Read more
The Nature Of Rights: Every State is known by the rights that it maintains. Our method of judging its character lies, above all, in the contribution that it makes to the substance of man’s happiness. The State, therefore, is not, at least for political philosophy, simply a sovereign organization with the power to get its … Read more
Forms of government and the State: Various attempts have been made to classify states, but these attempts have been unsatisfactory be cause they rest upon mo scientific principle by which the fundamental characteristics of various states may be distinguished. In their nature, in their legal character, and in their primary purposes, states are essentially similar. … Read more
The nature of political power: A working theory of the State must, in fact, be conceived in administrative terms. Its will is the decision arrived at by a small number of men to whom is confided the legal power of making decisions. How that power is organized is rather a matter of form than of … Read more
From such an outlook we may derive a sense of the purpose embodied in the State. In this aspect it becomes an organization for enabling the mass of men to realize social good on the largest possible scale. Necessarily, it is clear, its functions are confined to promoting certain uniformities of conduct and the area … Read more
A new political philosophy is necessary to a new world. The perspective of social thought has shifted in a direction different from the horizon set for it by Bentham and Hegel in the last century. If the large aims we have in view are not dissimilar to theirs, the materials at our command and the … Read more
Division of Powers on Territorial Basis: In addition to the distribution of governmental powers in accordance with the character of the function to be performed, as discussed in the preceding article, modern states, because of the extent of their area, find it desirable also to divide the powers of government along territorial lines. According to … Read more