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Pericles funeral oration summary
Pericles funeral oration summary
Pericles funeral oration summary
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Navigating Interstitial Spaces
“[T]he law permits the Americans to do what they please.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
The protection of virtue, I submit, requires an understanding of interstitial spaces—spaces where formalist adherence to rules and laws does not suffice to adequately promote virtue. Recognition of these spaces spawned agent morality and Aristotle’s practical wisdom. Fascination with these spaces fueled Alexis de Tocqueville’s inquiry into American religious, familial and political mores in Democracy in America. Though America’s formal, codified laws of the 1830s granted “dangerous freedom” to the individual, Americans managed to navigate interstitial spaces with assiduous virtue. This discussion will briefly connect threads from Aristotle’s Ethics, Plato’s Republic, and Pericles’ funeral oration to preface a more extensive examination of Tocqueville’s careful study of the institutions which reinforced virtue within America’s interstitial spaces. The conclusion will examine and evaluate the doctrine of “self-interest rightly understood” as the sole guarantor of virtue in the United States.
Aristotle, one of the forefathers of agent morality, understood that universal and formalist rules alone could not sustain virtue. Practical wisdom, “a truth-attaining intellectual quality concerned with doing and with the things that are good for human beings” allows the moral agent to operate virtuously in a context-specific way. “[I]t is not possible,” Aristotle writes, “without practical wisdom to be really good morally.” Obedience to fixed rules cannot govern action “to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way.” In order to cultiv...
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...ticipation correlate directly with the correct practice of “self-interest rightly understood” and we accept both Michael Sandel’s thesis about the rise of the “voluntarist self” and Robert Putnam’s thesis describing the decline of American social and political capital—then a gloomy picture emerges about the sustainability of virtue in the hands of enlightened self-interest alone. Without guidance in a wide expanse of interstitial space, it is easy to slip through the cracks.
Words Cited
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
Mitchell, Joshua. The Fragility of Freedom.
Plato. The Republic.
Putnam. Bowling Alone.
Sandel, Michael. Democracy’s Discontents.
Thucydides. The History of thte Peloponnesian War. “Pericles’ Funeral Oration.”
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America.
The American fight for freedom is a critical part of the American history. Following the foundation of a nation, the individuals who enabled the fight for freedom and were central in the fight called the founding fathers. In the book ‘Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different’, the author provides a vivid investigation of the founding fathers. The book offers a unique point of view that looks on to the founding fathers’ live in detail. The book offers knowledge that extends beyond what is availed into the history books into an analysis of character to present their individual values as a system in which they founded guiding principles for the country. The paper offer an analysis of ‘Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different’. Gordon Wood brings to light the ethical principles of the founding fathers to bring to light the basis of moral statures propagated and applied in the democratic system today despite the difference in time.
Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to the United States in the early part of the nineteenth century prompted his work Democracy in America, in which he expressed the ability to make democracy work. Throughout his travels Tocqueville noted that private interest and personal gain motivated the actions of most Americans, which in turn cultivated a strong sense of individualism. Tocqueville believed that this individualism would soon "sap the virtue of public life" (395) and create a despotism of selfishness. This growth of despotism would be created by citizens becoming too individualistic, and therefore not bothering to fulfill their civic duties or exercise their freedom. Tocqueville feared that the political order of America would soon become aimed at the satisfaction of individual needs, rather than the greater good of society. Alexis de Tocqueville viewed participation in public affairs, the growth of associations and newspapers, the principle of self-interest properly understood, and religion as the only means by which American democracy could combat the effects of individualism.
Reasonably, the moral citizen comes to clinch these obligations and establishments that bond them to their civic by their own wish. It is required in the space of these intertwining associations that drag us to one another that liberty has sense, and is given perseverance.
For both Tocqueville in his “Democracy in America” and Locke in his “Second Treatise of Civil Government”, liberty holds a place of paramount importance in the pantheon of political values, specifically those in relation to democratic and republican systems (though Locke does not explicitly demand a republic as Tocqueville does) . From Tocqueville’s belief in the supremacy of liberty over equality , to Locke’s inclusion and conflation of liberty with property and life itself in his natural rights , liberty plays the crucial role of linchpin in both author’s political philosophy. Though this belief in the centrality of liberty is found in both Tocqueville and Locke, they each derivate liberty from fundamentally disparate sources, and thus hold
Defining the American character is quite difficult because American identity is vaguely founded on shared values and ideologies, more so than a particular creed, race, or culture. In order to describe the American character, we will consider the dominate and distinctive qualities of Americans as interpreted by J. Hector St. Jon De Crèvecoeur and Thomas Paine. First, we will examine how Crèvecoeur illustrates Americans as industrious, prideful, and political in “Letters from an American Farmer.” Then, we will analyze from Thomas Paine's “Common Sense” how he depicts the prevalent qualities of Americans to be driven by justice, liberty, emotions, and individualism. Also, because both authors consider the American character and culture different
When George Henry Evans cited the unalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence and that, “’to secure these rights’ against the undue influence of other classes of society, prudence… dictates the necessity of the organization of a party, who shall…prevent dangerous combinations to subvert these indefeasible and fundamental privileges”, he called for a party to become the sentinel of the original American democracy. And for many, the Jacksonian Democratic Party filled that role. The Democrats, who pursued a democracy that entailed economic and social independence for the common citizen, faced harsh opposition from the Whig Party in the Second American Party System. But apart from the political tensions of the era, the mid-1800’s were host to numerous movements and events that embodied, and didn’t embody, the Democratic ideals. Thus, it would be foolish to claim that the Democratic period merely represented a raising of the American democratic banner and even more foolish to ascribe any other black-and-white evaluation to this period. Rather, during a time of national and individual transformation, of economic missions, and of social revision, the Jacksonian Democrats succeeded in expanding their reality of individual liberty, in creating the circumstances for further change, and in falling short of some of their grandiose ideals for the “common citizen”.
The early 1800’s were an unusual time in the history of the United States. A country in its infancy, growing, turbulent, and filled with intrigue where political and economic fortunes were made and lost overnight. While the country was founded on noble ideas---and no doubt these powerful ideas were taken seriously---how such ideas were to be put into practice created fertile ground for personal ambition and interest to be a stronger motivator than the “common good”. In fact, at times it appears that the ideas were little more than vehicles for the personal ambitions---and in the case of this story---the personal vendettas of powerful personalities.
In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville writes that, “equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived” in America. With the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln rededicates America to this fundamental creed, holding the Declaration of Independence’s claim that “all men are created equal” as the nation’s ideological foundation. Lincoln’s speech evokes Pericles’s Funeral Oration, which similarly flaunts equality as the bedrock of Athens. By linking the two speeches and states, Lincoln expands America’s national duty in demanding that the country provide an example to the world like Athens. Lincoln uses this duty as a reason to continue the war effort, following Pericles’s example of protreptikon. Most importantly, the linkage draws a contrast between the two states: Athenian exceptionalism is based on realized cultural values, while Lincoln’s American exceptionalism is purely doctrinal. In comparing the two, Lincoln displays that America must follow through on past intentions in order to realize its greatness.
According to Aristotle, we learn moral virtues by habit and they are developed through practice. A person’s character is formed by what they do and the structure of their habits. We are all born with the potential to be morally virtuous, but we must behave the right way consistently in order to train ourselves. Since there are no absolute rules to follow, we can only observe that it consists of some mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess. For example, truthfulness consists in finding a mean between the extremes of being suspicious and being over-trusting. By calling excellence of character a state, Aristotle means that it is not a mere tendency to behave in specific ways. Virtue is a disposition, not a feeling. It is disposition to be...
To sum up, looking upon the term self-interest, people not only need to separate its concept with selfishness, but also have to
Aristotle’s approach in The Nicomachean Ethics seemed to say that virtues can become regular habits that each human being performs and if performed well can lead to happiness. However, he says that we are not born with these virtues so we have to learn them. Aristotle seemed to observe people using the word virtue to name a person’s action which they did correctly. According to Aristotle, a human must perform actions in society to determine if they are finding the co...
Human beings are confronted with numerous issues throughout his or her lifetime that would require him or her to examine the best action to take to avoid the damaging consequences. In most cases, individuals restrain his or her action to take into consideration the consequences that may lead to the right or wrong behavior. One’s ethical and moral standards are first learned at an early age from his or her culture, how he or she is raised, religious background, and social system. Scientifically, there are various ethical theories, such as the virtue theory, deontological ethics, and utilitarianism (Boylan, 2009). By understanding these theories one can compare, contrast and uncover the reasoning behind his or her ethical and moral standards.
In Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant attempts to establish a valid basis for ethics. Specifically, he wants to develop an ethical system that has compelling power. He views the traditional, happiness-based ethics as insufficient because they lack compelling power, meaning that they do not have the power to curtail our actions. His solution is that people should be guided by the moral law, which can be discovered by pure reason alone, and which says that any action should be judged by whether or not it could serve as a principle in a universal law. However, I argue that Kant’s proposed ethical system fails in two ways. First, it lacks the compelling power that Kant thinks it has. Second, if the moral law is accessible via reason alone, then different cultures should not come up with the radically different ethical systems that they have come up with over history.
Interest is sparked in this area that Aristotle writes of because there is a natural need for Ethics in human life. John K. Roth states, “Aristotle assumes that all things, human beings included, have a good, a purpose or end, which it is their nature to fulfill”. This helps one understand Aristotle’s way of thinking, and provides insight to the basis of his theories. A common theory explored by Aristotle is the Ethics of Virtues, and how to practice them. A theory included in Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics is the unity of all the virtues, and in order to be virtuous, one must exhibit all the virtues. One of these virtues being practical wisdom, or Phronesis.
Thesis: I argue that wisdom is a mixture of practical knowledge and abstract knowledge where a person is capable of and succeeds at applying these ideas in a rational way that results in a good life.