Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy

Philosophy is a Greek word meaning love for wisdom, which comes from the word "Philo" meaning "Love" and "Sophia" meaning "wisdom".

Philosophy of everything has been changing throughout time. It encourages to ask questions and try to discover answers through observation and thought process. This quest for answers in the line of political philosophy has resulted in many discoveries. Starting from Greek democracy, Magna Carta, Capitalism, Communism, French and American Revolutions, Feminism, Libertarianism and recently Tea Party in US. These discoveries change the way we live life.

Question that relating to Politics are:
What society is best for progress?
What are the rights and responsibilities?
What system is the best for people?

All these questions are answered and regulated by government of state upon its citizen. The question that arises is that why do we need government to regulate these. The idea for the basic need for governance can be obtained from the early writings of Thomas Hobbes.

In his book leviathan, he gives us the situation where we live in a society, where there is no government. He calls it "state of nature". In state of nature a common man will develop many fears. Fear of theft; Things that he gained be stolen from him or taken from him by force. Fear of his and his family's life. There will be no force to regulate the rules for society. There will be nothing to constitute basic human laws. As a result people will waste their resource and energy to protect what they got, thus wastage of resources on their security will make the society less productive.

Thus we require a basic form of governing body to regulate interaction between people of its state, to stop them from wasting resources. That is where the role of government comes in. With state governing body regulating proper laws every human's right within that particular state will be safeguarded by the government. The laws will be made in accordance with demands and security of its people.

Please add your info in comments to further develop the basic Philosophy of Politics on this blog. Informative addition and constructive criticism will be much appreciated.

Reference:
Leviathan, Author: Thomas Hobbes
Tamar Gendler (Chair Philosophy Yale University)Youtube video