Democracy

UNIT3
Democracy

•Introduction: Ethics and Politics

•Activity 1: Ring of Gyges
•Activity 2: Ethics and Politics
•Human being nature
•Prisoner’s dilemma
•Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau Comparison Grid
•How society determine individual behaviour
•Asch’s experiment
•Milgram’s experiment
•The Stanford prison experiment
•Activity 3: Reflexion about how society determine individual behaviour
Democracy

•Democracy
•Definition
•Direct and indirect democracy
•Voting and Elections
•Majority rule and minority rights
•Parties
•Activity 4: Mouseland
•Separation of powers
•Rule of Law
•Citizenship
•Welfare State
Democracy

•Some political ideologies:

•Liberalism
•Communism
•Fascism
•Political utopias
 Activity 1: Ring of Gyges

“The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have
been possessed by Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service
of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was
feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow
brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than
human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds
met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their
assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring
inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were
no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he
made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible,
when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court;
where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the
kingdom”. Plato, The Republic, book 2.
•If you could be invisible, would you have the same behaviour? Explain why.
 Activity 1: Ring of Gyges

•Even an ethical person would have a different

behaviour without the observation of society and
rules.
•Plato’s story remains important to us today
because it concerns what we can expect humans to
do with power over others. In politics, we give
power to others, hoping that they will do what is
right. If Plato's allegory of the ring is right, then we
had better watch out. Anyone who gains power
without accountability is liable to use it unjustly.
•Of course, for Plato a just and fair person (an
ethical person) would have the same behavior even
if this person would have the power of being
invisible.
Activity 2: Ethics and Politics (1)

•“Ethics is the art of choosing what suits us and living as well as

we can. Politics sets out to do everything it can for the
convenience of society, in such a way that individuals can
choose what suits them. As nobody lives alone […], anyone
concerned with the ethics of living well cannot pretend to an
Olympian detachment from politics. It would be like making
yourself comfortable in a house without wanting to know
anything about the drips, the rats, the temperamental heater,
and the wormy cement.
 Activity 2: Ethics and Politics (2)
•There are, however, important differences between ethics and politics. Ethics concerns itself with how an
individual person (you, me, anyone) acts with respect to his freedom, while politics tries to coordinate what
many people do with their freedom in a way that will be beneficial to all. In ethics, it is important to want
well, because ethics is mostly about what each person does because he or she wants to –not about what
happens to us, or what we do because we have to. In politics, on the other hand, what matters are the results
of actions, and the politician will press with all the means at his disposal, including force, to obtain certain
results and to avoid others. Let’s take a simple case: obeying traffic lights. From the moral point of view, the
positive attitude is to respect the light (understanding its general use, putting yourself in the place of others
who could be hurt if you disobey); but if you look at it politically, what matters is that nobody jumps the light,
even if they obey only through fear of a fine or prison. To politicians, all those who obey the red light are
equally “good”, whether they obey from fear, habit, or superstition, or from rational conviction; but from an
ethical point of view, these last are the only “good” ones, since they have a better understanding of the use of
freedom. In a word, there is a difference between the ethical question I put to myself (how do I choose to act
with respect to others?) and the preoccupation of politics, namely that the majority should live their lives in
the most satisfactory and harmonious manner.
•Fernando Savater, Amador: A Father Talks to His Son about Happiness, Freedom, and Love, page 100-102.
Activity 2: Ethics and Politics (3)

•Answer these questions:

•1. How does Fernando Savater define Politics? And Ethics?
•3. In what aspects do they look like?
•4. In what aspects are they different?
•5. Why is it important that they go together?
Prisoner’s dilemma
 Prisoner’s dilemma

•The prisoners’ dilemma is the best-known game of strategy in social

science. It helps us understand what governs the balance between
cooperation and competition in politics, and in social settings.
•It shows why two purely "rational" individuals might not cooperate, even
if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.
•People according to public choice theorists are selfish and they look for
self-interest more than altruism.
•In fact, this negative and pessimistic conception of human being is not
new in the history of Ideas. The conception of human being, negative or
positive, determine the model of political organization since Thomas
Hobbes’ times.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•Social contract, in political philosophy, is an actual or
hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the
ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties
of each. In primeval times, according to the theory,
individuals were born into an anarchic state of
nature, which was happy or unhappy according to
the particular version. They then, by exercising
natural reason, formed a society (and a government)
by means of a contract among themselves.
•Activity 1:
oHow would it be that state of nature for you (no
police, no laws, no government)?
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract

•Thomas Hobbes maintained

that there is not connection
between Ethics and Politics.
Hobbes and his followers claim
that good conduct is imposed
by the state and therefore
ethics is only a branch of
politics.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•State of nature according to Hobbes:
Violent place, people live in constant fear.
Like a state of war (not necessarily fighting but the
inclination to fight and take pre-emptive measures against
each other).
The condition of man...is a condition of war of everyone
against everyone”.
People think of their own interests over others”.
No morality.
Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life.
When there is no government.
Pessimistic conception of human being: Homo homini lupus
est, is a Latin proverb meaning "A man is a wolf to another
man."
Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•Law of nature according to Hobbes:
Man may do whatever he sees fit to protect his
interests, especially his life: “A man cannot lay
down the right of resisting them that assault him
by force, to take away his life”.
Men are equal.
•Right of nature:
Right to life/preservation of life.
Right of a person to everything.
Right of a person to do whatever is necessary
to preserve his interests, especially his life.
Right to equality.
Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•Social contract according to Hobbes:

People collectively agree to give up all

their freedom and power to a sovereign
(ruler.)
Absolute control (authoritarian monarchy)
where all powers and laws are by that
sovereign.
Government imposes laws and order to
prevent the state of war.
Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•John Locke is considered as one of the most
influential of Enlightenment thinkers and
commonly known as the "Father of
Liberalism.“
•Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that
human nature is characterized by reason and
tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that
human nature allowed people to be selfish.
•Locke also advocated governmental
separation of powers and believed that
revolution is not only a right but an obligation
in some circumstances. These ideas would
come to have profound influence on the
Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States.
Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
•State of nature according to Locke:

It is not equal to a state of war.

It is actually chaotic but neither good nor bad.
People are equal and free to do whatever they
want but are bound by the law of nature.
People have stronger moral limits.
Men are inherently peaceful.
No government.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
 Law of nature according to Locke:
 Fundamental law of nature is that as much as possible mankind is to
be preserved.
 Men are free and equal.
 Single absolute law regardless of where people live (applies to all.)
 Can be discovered by reason alone.
 Different from divine law.

Right of nature:
 Right to life (to live); right to liberty (to do anything they want with
respect to the right of others to life); to property (to own all they
create or acquire with respect to others’ life and liberty rights.)
 All people have natural rights.
 These are privileges or claims to which people are entitle.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
 Social contract according to
Locke:
 Governments exist by of the consent of people to
protect their natural rights and promote public good.
 The right of revolution is exercised when the
government fails (people may rebel to redress the
government.)
 There is the principle of the rule of majority where
things are decided by the greater public (liberal
monarchy.)
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
Jean Jacques Rousseau influenced the
Enlightenment in France and across Europe,
as well as aspects of the French Revolution
and the overall development of modern
political and educational thought.
Rousseau asserted that the stage of human
development associated with what he called
"savages" was the best or optimal in human
development, between the less-than-optimal
extreme of brute animals on the one hand
and the extreme of decadent civilization on
the other. "...Nothing is so gentle as man in
his primitive state, when placed by nature at
an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes
and the fatal enlightenment of civil man.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
State of Nature according to Rousseau:
 A primitive condition without law or
morality where “uncorrupted moral”
prevails.
 Men are ignorant and innocent.
 Men are born with the potential of
goodness.
 Men are just like any other animal.
 People do not interact much but
interaction and competition are
unavoidable.
 There is no government.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
Law of Nature according to Rousseau:
 Natural law is morality.
 Morality is preservation of self without
causing harm to others.
 Morality is a natural repugnance at seeing
other human beings suffer.
 Rousseau does not agree of causing pain to
others in order to preserve oneself.
 Right of Nature:
 Whatever you need to survive is good but not in the extent of
harming others.
 Natural rights are on the principles of pity and self-
preservation.
 These rights make men unequal.
 Brief history of their relationship in
Philosophy: Social Contract
Social Contract according to Rousseau:
 Social contract is made among all
people of that society to bring them in
harmony.
 A general will is made and agreed by
the people to abide by it: “Each of us
puts his person and all his power in
common under the supreme direction
of the general will; and in a body we
receive each member as an indivisible
part of the whole.”
 Direct rule by the people (Democracy.)
How society determine individual behaviour

 The following classical psychological experiments show how society and groups determine individual
behavior. Can a good person make horrible acts because they obey orders or they behave as the others do?
 Asch’s experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt9i7ZiMed8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFWGORLGpSM
 Milgram’s experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plTi12wf374
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUFN1eX2s6Q
 The Stanford prison experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPbCHFkftb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0bN28rfRA
Activity 3: How society determine individual
behaviour

 Make a personal reflexion about how society determine individual behaviour taking into
account the psychological experiments we watched before.
Democracy
Direct Democracy
Indirect or Representative Democracy

 In an Indirect or Representative Democracy,

the citizens vote to elect representatives.
Then the elected representatives make
decisions for the citizens.
 Representative democracy is usually
necessary in complex societies with many
citizens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6jgWxkbR7A
 Democracy

 Democracy is a form of social coexistence. A key

characteristics of democracy is the respect for
the rights of individuals and groups.
 Democracy is also a system of political
organization. In a democratic system, supreme
power belongs to the people.
 Democracies also defend two important
principles:
 Political pluralism. Multiple political parties
play an important role in democracy. They
help to control the Government at the local,
autonomous and national levels.
 The separation of powers. The state exercises
three types of power: legislative, executive and
judicial. These three powers belong to separate
institutions.
Political pluralism: vote
 Political pluralism: Elections

• Council Elections
• Autonomous Community Elections
• General Elections
• European Elections
 Political parties: Majority rule and minority
rights

 The essence of democracy is majority rule, the making of binding decisions by a vote of
more than one-half of all people who participate in an election.
 In every genuine democracy today, majority rule is both endorsed and limited by the
supreme law of the constitution, which protects the rights of individuals. It is also
limited in order to protect minority rights because if it were unchecked it probably would
be used to oppress people holding unpopular views. Unlimited majority rule in a
democracy is potentially just as despotic as the unchecked rule of an autocrat or an elitist
minority political party.
Political pluralism: Parties
Activity 4
•Watch the video called Mouseland:
•What ideas share about political parties? Is it a positive or negative
point of view about parties? Do you agree? Why?
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtTW72F8xo0
Separation of powers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1cN5KuB5s0
 Separation of powers in Spain

 The three powers of the Spanish state are

controlled by different institutions. Legislative power Parliament (Cortes
 Parliament (Cortes Generales) has legislative power. Generales)
This is the power to pass laws. There are two • Congress
houses of Parliament in Spain: The Congress
(Congreso de los Diputados) and the Senate (Congreso de los
(Senado). Diputados)
 The Government has executive power. This is the • Senate (Senado)
power to govern the country and enforce the laws
that Parliament passes. The Government includes Executive power Government,
the Prime Minister and the ministers. Each minister including the Prime
is responsible for a specific area, such as education,
health, or economy. Minister and the
 Judges and magistrates have judicial power. This is Ministers
the power to decide whether someone is obeying
or breaking the law. Judges and magistrates can Judicial power Judges and
also impose sanctions or punishments. magistrates
Rule of Law

 The rule of law (also known as nomocracy) is the legal principle that law should govern a
nation, as opposed to arbitrary decisions by individual government officials.
 The concept was familiar to ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, who wrote "Law
should govern“.
 Rule of law implies that every citizen is subject to the law, including law makers
themselves. In this sense, it stands in contrast to an autocracy, dictatorship, or oligarchy
where the rulers are held above the law.
Rule of Law
Citizenship
Citizenship

• Many thinkers point to the concept of citizenship beginning in the

early city-states (pólis) of ancient Greece.
Citizenship

 A citizen is not a vassal. In the Middle Ages, a vassal was a person who held land under
the feudal system, doing homage and pledging fealty to an overlord, and performing
military or other duties in return for his protection.
 A citizen is not a subject. The monarchs of enlightened absolutism ruled intent on
improving the lives of their subjects in order to strengthen their authority. Implicit in this
philosophy was that the sovereign knew the interests of his or her subjects better than
they themselves; his or her responsibility to them thus precluded their political
participation.
Citizenship
 Citizenship

 All citizens must pay taxes. The Ministry of

Public Finance collects taxes on various
things, including salaries, purchases, and
lottery winnings. It also collects money from
fines. The Ministry administers this money
through the General State Budget.
 The General State Budget describes how the
government will spend public funds on
health-care, education, public works and
other programmes. In this way, citizens
receive social services, especially citizens who
are economically less fortunate.
 Citizenship

 Two of the most important social

services that people receive are
Civil Protection and Social
Security. The Social Security
system offers health-care,
unemployment benefits, pensions
and other programmes. In this
way, it guarantees a minimum
standard of life and dignity for all
affiliates and their families,
including foreign residents.
Welfare State
Some political ideologies: Liberalism

 Liberalism is, with communism and fascism, one of the most important ideologies of the
20th century.
 As we saw before, John Locke is the father of modern liberalism. Locke argued that each
man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, while adding that governments must
not violate these rights based on the social contract.
 Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in
government with representative democracy and the rule of law.
 Liberalism is also an economic theory characterized by the laissez-faire (“let (them)do”,
“let it be”, “leave it alone”) in which transactions between private parties are free from
government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies.
Some political ideologies: Liberalism

John Locke is often credited with

founding liberalism as a distinct
philosophical tradition.
The Two Treaties (1690) are the
foundational text of liberal ideology
Some political ideologies: Communism

 Marxism is the movement founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which fights for
the self-emancipation of the working class, subjecting all forms of domination by the
bourgeoisie, its institutions and its ideology, to theoretical and practical critique.
 Marx saw behind capitalism's law and order appearance a struggle of two main classes:
the capitalists, who own the productive resources, and the workers or proletariat, who
must work in order to survive.
 Workers in capitalist society do not own the means—machines, raw materials,
factories—which they use in their work. These are owned by the capitalists to whom the
workers must sell their "labor power", or ability to do work, in return for a wage.
Some political ideologies: Communism

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Some political ideologies: Communism
Some political ideologies: Communism

 There is also Marxism as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist
movements, particularly before 1914. Then there is Soviet Marxism as worked out by
Vladimir Ilich Lenin and modified by Joseph Stalin, which under the name of Marxism-
Leninism became the doctrine of the communist parties set up after the Russian
Revolution.
 Socialism, social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private
ownership or control of property and natural resources. Socialism is reformist.
Some political ideologies: Communism

Rosa Luxemburg was one of the leaders of Socialism in Europe

Some political ideologies: Communism

 Communism is a system of government in which a single party controls state-owned

means of production with the aim of establishing a stateless society. Lenin believed that
socialism could not be attained without violent revolution. Lenin concluded that it must
be engineered by a quasi-military party of professional revolutionaries, which he began
and led. After realizing that the revolution would have many opponents, Lenin
determined that the best way to quell resistance was with what he frankly called
“terror”—mass executions, slave labor, and starvation. After seeing that the majority of
his countrymen opposed communism even after his military triumph, Lenin concluded
that one-party dictatorship must continue until it enjoyed unshakeable popular support.
Some political ideologies: Communism

Lenin was the leader of the Russian Revolution

Some political ideologies: Fascism

 Fascism is a political ideology that developed after World War I in Italy and Germany.
Fascism is characterized by strong nationalism, an extreme level of authoritarianism,
corporatism, militarization and hostility towards both liberalism and Marxism.
Some political ideologies: Fascism

German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini

drive through Rome in 1938. Mussolini defined the idea of Fascism and the all-powerful State.
Some political ideologies: Political utopias

 A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities.

The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in Greek for his 1516 book Utopia (in Latin),
describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean.
 The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to
create an ideal society, and imagined societies portrayed in fiction. It has spawned other
concepts, most prominently dystopia.