An Analysis of the Problem of Political Power

An Analysis of the Problem of Political Power

  • Submitted By: unnukas
  • Date Submitted: 12/06/2013 11:21 PM
  • Category: Philosophy
  • Words: 1446
  • Page: 6
  • Views: 82

Introduction
It is said that in the political philosophy there are only two questions: „Who can have what?“ and „Who will decide over it?“. It is not exactly like that but it is quite close to the trough, to begin with. The first question includes material amenity's, and dividing rights and liberties.(Wolff, 1996) What is power? It is ability to influence others to do something they otherwise would not. Also, others can be affected with threats and force. (Kilp, 2010) Political power includes also right to force the others and to punish them if they disobey. Who should have that kind of power? Actually the political power is quite mysterious by itself. If someone has legitimate political power over me then he or she has a right to force me to do things that they want.(Wolff, 1996) But how can other person have rights to tell me what I have to do? It feels insulting if someone says to me what I have to do – especially if he or she thinks that he or she has a right to punish me if I disobey. But of course there is a different view. We need to think about, how will the others behave if they were not held back by laws. If we think about it then there might be a lot to say about the importance of political power. (Wolff, 1996)

Nature – condition
We think that it is self-evident that we live in the world of political institutions.(Wolff, 1996) These institutions divide and make political power. They determine people to their work positions which need responsibility. That way these people say that they have right to tell us what we have to do, and if we do not agree we will be punished. We visualize nature – condition as a situation where state does not exist and political power do not belong to anyone. In this situation we need to decide how can people live in this kind of conditions. This way we will understand how would the life be without the state and hopefully it will help us to see why do we even need the state. For example Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that...

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