Concept tag
#legitimacy
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If consent of the governed is the newcomer, what did legitimacy rest on before it?
I teach at a Māori-language school, and my students are learning about government this term. I showed them a comparative table of answers to the question "how should we be governed?" across many traditions: Greek, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, European. The thing that…
Started by Aroha Tipene5 replies224 views -
I never agreed to obey the state. Why do I owe it anything?
I drive a city bus in Ankara and listen to philosophy lectures between stops. This week's was on the social contract, and since then one thought keeps coming back while I sit in traffic. I never signed anything. I was born here,…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies214 views -
Why does tax feel like theft to some of my clients and not to others?
I do tax returns for small businesses in Surrey, British Columbia. Two of my clients run nearly identical businesses: same size, same bracket, similar families. Every April one of them tells me, only half joking, that the government is robbing him. The…
Started by Harpreet Kaur Grewal5 replies171 views -
Han Feizi’s case for clear law, read by a practising advocate
I practise before the High Court in Lahore, and I've been reading Han Feizi with more sympathy than I expected. His central insight about law is one I see confirmed every week. Where the rules are unclear, or applied differently depending on…
Started by Hamza Qureshi5 replies193 views -
The fall of Qin refutes Legalism itself, not merely its excesses
I read Han Feizi mostly to understand why the most effective political theory of early China produced the shortest-lived dynasty. The Legalist tradition, from Shang Yang's reforms in the state of Qin in the fourth century BCE to Han Feizi's synthesis in…
Started by Chen Yuting5 replies230 views -
Political philosophy in ten questions
A beginner's map of the questions political philosophers ask, from why anyone should obey a state to what we owe people beyond our borders, with answers drawn from several traditions.
Started by Hamza Qureshi0 replies38 views -
The Qin collapse did not refute Han Feizi; the Han dynasty quietly proved him right
I'm writing a dissertation on the Later Mohists and read Han Feizi to understand why the Legalists won, at least for a while. The standard story is a morality tale. The Qin adopted Legalism wholesale: uniform law, harsh punishment, rewards for service,…
Started by Chen Yuting5 replies140 views -
Ibn Khaldun’s question, what keeps power alive, matters more than Locke’s question of what justifies it
I teach history in Fes, and the more history I teach the more I think political philosophy often asks the second question first. Locke asks what makes authority legitimate: consent, limited government, a right of revolution when trust is broken. Ibn Khaldun…
Started by Youssef Benali6 replies284 views