Tyrannical Majority
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Tyrannical Majority
Tyranny of the majority refers to a situation in majority rule where the preferences and interests of the majority dominate the political landscape, potentially sidelining or repressing minority groups and using majority rule to take non-democratic actions. This idea has been discussed by various thinkers, including John Stuart Mill in ''On Liberty'' and Alexis de Tocqueville in ''Democracy in America''. To reduce the risk of majority tyranny, modern democracies frequently have countermajoritarian institutions that restrict the ability of majorities to repress minorities and stymie political competition. In the context of a nation, constitutional limits on the powers of a legislative body such as a bill of rights or supermajority clause have been used. Separation of powers or judicial independence may also be implemented.A Przeworski, JM Maravall, I NetLibrary Democracy and the Rule of Law' (2003) p. 223 In social choice, a tyranny-of-the-majority scenario can be formally defin ...
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Majority Rule
In social choice theory, the majority rule (MR) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options (such as bills or candidates), the option preferred by more than half of the voters (a ''majority'') should win. In political philosophy, the ''majority rule'' is one of two major competing notions of democracy. The most common alternative is given by the utilitarian rule (or other welfarist rules), which identify the spirit of liberal democracy with the equal consideration of interests.Ball, Terence and Antis Loizides"James Mill" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Although the two rules can disagree in theory, political philosophers beginning with James Mill have argued the two can be reconciled in practice, with majority rule being a valid approximation to the utilitarian rule whenever voters share similarly-strong preferences. This position has found strong support in many social choice models, where the ...
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Mixed Government
Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived in Aristotle's ''Politics'' as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny. The idea was popularized during classical antiquity in order to describe the stability, the innovation and the success of the republic as a form of government developed under the Roman constitution. Unlike classical democracy, aristocracy or monarchy, under a mixed government rulers are elected by citizens rather than acquiring their positions by inheritance or sortition (at the Greco-Roman time, sortition was conventionally regarded as the principal characteristic of classical democracy). The concept of a mixed government was studied during the Renaissance and the Age of Reason by Tomás Fernández de Medrano, Niccolò Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes and others. It was ...
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Malthusian Growth Model
A Malthusian growth model, sometimes called a simple exponential growth model, is essentially exponential growth based on the idea of the function being proportional to the speed to which the function grows. The model is named after Thomas Robert Malthus, who wrote ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'' (1798), one of the earliest and most influential books on population."Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population: Library of Economics" Malthusian models have the following form: : P(t) = P_0e^ where * ''P''0 = ''P''(0) is the initial population size, * ''r'' = the population growth rate, which Ronald Fisher called the Malthusian parameter of population growth in '' The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection'', and Alfred J. Lotka called the ''intrinsic rate of increase'', * ''t'' = time. The model can also be written in the form of a differential equation: : \frac = rP with initial condition: ''P''(0)= ''P''0 This model is often referred to as the exponential law ...
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Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in ''Principles of Biology'' (1864) after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism. Riggenbach, Jeff (24 April 2011The Real William Graham Sumner, Mises Institute. Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolutionism, evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During h ...
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Law Review
A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also provide a scholarly analysis of emerging legal concepts from various topics. The primary function of a law review is to publish scholarship in the field of law. Law reviews publish lengthy, comprehensive treatments of subjects (referred to as "articles"), that are generally written by law professors, and to a lesser extent judges, or legal practitioners. The shorter pieces, attached to the articles, commonly called "notes" and "comments", often are written by law student members of the law review. Law review articles often express the thinking of specialists or experts with regard to problems, in a legal setting, with potential solutions to those problems. Historically, law review articles have been influential in the development of the law; they ...
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Lani Guinier
Carol Lani Guinier ( ; April 19, 1950 – January 7, 2022) was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship there. Before coming to Harvard in 1998, Guinier taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for ten years. Her scholarship covered the professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, college admissions, and affirmative action. In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Guinier to be United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, but withdrew the nomination. Early life and career Carol Lani Guinier was born on April 19, 1950, in New York City, to Eugenia "Genii" Paprin and Ewart Guinier. Ewart, who was born in Panama to Jamaican parents and raised in Panama and Boston, was one of two black students admitt ...
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Repressive Tolerance
''A Critique of Pure Tolerance'' is a 1965 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, the sociologist Barrington Moore Jr., and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, in which the authors discuss the political role of tolerance. Summary The book includes a foreword jointly written by its authors, and three other contributions: "Beyond Tolerance" by Robert Paul Wolff, "Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook" by Barrington Moore Jr., and "Repressive Tolerance", by Herbert Marcuse. The authors explain that the book's title refers to the philosopher Immanuel Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781), and suggest that their ideas may resemble those of Kant. They note that they have different perspectives on philosophy, with Wolff accepting, and Marcuse opposing, the approach of analytic philosophy, and Moore being critical of philosophy in general. They write that the purpose of the book is to discuss the political role of tolerance and that despite their disagreements with each other they b ...
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Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and then at the University of Freiburg, where he received his PhD.Lemert, Charles. ''Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings''. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 2010. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research, which later became known as the Frankfurt School. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control. Between 1943 and 1950, Marcuse worked in U.S. government service for the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) where he criticized the ...
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Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named ''Objectivism''. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway theatre, Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel ''The Fountainhead''. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel ''Atlas Shrugged''. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own Objectivist periodicals, periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported Rational egoism, rational and ethical egoism as opposed to Altruism (ethics), altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immor ...
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Human, All Too Human
''Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits'' () is a book by 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1878. A second part, ''Assorted Opinions and Maxims'' (), was published in 1879, and a third part, ''The Wanderer and his Shadow'' (), followed in 1880.Nietzsche, Friedrich. 8781908. Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits', translated by A. Harvey. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co. . . HathiTrust001386232 Retrieved 20 August 2020. The book is Nietzsche's first in the aphoristic style that would come to dominate his writings, discussing a variety of concepts in short paragraphs or sayings. Reflecting an admiration of Voltaire as a free thinker, but also a break in his friendship with composer Richard Wagner two years earlier, Nietzsche dedicated the original 1878 edition of ''Human, All Too Human'' "to the memory of Voltaire on the celebration of the anniversary of his death, May 30, 1778". Instead of a preface, the first part originally inc ...
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest professor to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. Plagued by health problems for most of his life, he resigned from the university in 1879, and in the following decade he completed much of his core writing. In 1889, aged 44, he suffered a collapse and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years under the care of his family until his death. Friedrich Nietzsche bibliography, His works and Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, his philosophy have fostered not only extensive scholarship but also much popular interest. Nietzsche's work encompasses philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism and fiction, while displaying ...
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Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January [New Style, NS] 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, social and Philosophy of culture, cultural philosophy of conservatism.Andrew Heywood, ''Political Ideologies: An Introduction''. Third Edition. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 74. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and writers, Burke spent most of his political career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig (British political party), Whig Party. His writings and literary publications influenced British conservative thought to a great extent, and helped establish the earliest foundations for modern conservatism and liberal democracy. His writings also played a crucial role in influencing public views and opinions in Britain ...
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