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Ah, Fall. Classes here have started already! Probably because of what I am teaching this semester I started thinking about the questions we (members and subscribers to this blog and potential members and subscribers of this blog) address. It seems to me there are three basic questions of our field(s).
1. What should the social world be like?
This, I think, is the domain of social philosophy, properly understood. One part of that domain, I think, is the political—leading to questions 2 and 3. The domain of the social, though, is broader and includes how people act in social situations—i.e., here is where we should probably place questions about (non-governmental) power differentials and such (the parenthetical, of course, implies that we can differentiate between governmental and non-governmental power). I suspect that those that call themselves “political theorists” are often more interested in other aspects of social philosophy than are those that call themselves “political philosophers.” I’d be interested in knowing if others think that is right or wrong.
2. Should there be a government?
Perhaps this is the primary question of political philosophy. If the answer is “no,” then the third question might not be asked. (It might be asked even if the answer is “no” though since even if we should not have a government, we may not have a choice in the matter and would want to determine the best option possible.) In any case, I think there are a number of elements to this question: Can anyone have a right to rule? Does anyone have that right? Does anyone have a duty to obey?
3. What sort of government should we have? This has, I think, 3 sub-questions:
a. Who, of those in a society, should rule?
b. What should the government have the power to do?
c. How should the powers be codified? Are they codifiable? How are the codifications to be understood and interpreted? (philosophy of law)
For completeness, I think we might also say:
The first question “What should the social world be like?” is a part of a broader question: “How should we be and what should we do?” That, I think, means that Social Philosophy is properly conceived of as part of Ethics—which strikes me as right. With that addition, we can recognize this tree (or something like it) where each lower field is a branch of the field above it:
Philosophy
Value Theory (as well as Metaphysics and Epistemology and …)
Ethics (as well as aesthetics and …)
Social Philosophy (as well as Normative Ethics, meta-Ethics, and applied ethics)
Political Philosophy (as well as race theory, gender theory, and …)
Philosophy of Law (as well as … )
What do people think about all of this?
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2 comments
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1 - Wednesday, 27 August 2008 at 3:38 am
Bill Edmundson
Andrew, Metaethics sticks out at a surprising place on the tree. Shouldn’t it be up there with metaphysics, rather than in the middle, with social philosophy? Another point: you characterize social philosophy as primarily normative. Mightn’t there be a descriptive social philosophy? Hart approached the philosophy of law descriptively. A social philosopher might take the same line. (I don’t say that Hart wasn’t a social philosopher: I think he was.)
2 - Thursday, 28 August 2008 at 3:52 am
Andrew Jason Cohen
Hey Bill-
I’m definitely OK with the oddity about meta-ethics. I think of meta-ethics as bridging ethics with both metaphysics and epistemology, so it would have to “branch” up to those (making an odd looking tree).
As for descriptive social philosophy: I suppose I’m OK with broadening the first question to “What is the social world like and what should it be like?” My worry about that is only that there will be some attempts to answer “What is the social world like?” that I might not want to count as philosophy. Some, for example, will be good sociology (of course, still others will simply be bad armchair sociology masquerading as philosophy).
Of course, once we do this, it may seem odd that Social Philosophy is in the “middle” of the tree. Perhaps it, too, will have to branch out/over/up to something else!