Category Archives: Social and Political Philosophy

Concept-Checking: Authority Figures (AFs) vs. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

Epistemology, Logic, Social and Political Philosophy October 17, 2022 Leave a comment

On the surface, one may think that an ‘authority’ or ‘authority figure’ is the same thing (or nearly the same thing) as an ‘expert.’ Teasing out the key differences to these concepts and their functions is of considerable philosophical significance.

Let’s take an ‘authority figure’ first. Someone who is an authority figure is someone who is seemingly responsible, either preventatively or reactively, for enforcing observance or obedience to a particular norm/rule/principle/ideal. They either encourage us to uphold (or at least not to break) that norm/rule/principle/ideal. Or, if we decide not to do what is asked or expected of us, they may punish us for our seemingly incorrect choice.

We can think of 3 key examples within our daily lives: the religious leader (e.g. priest, rabbi, imam, guru, etc.), the police officer (or military official), and the calculator (or the computer program).

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Key Quotes from On Disobedience by Erich Fromm

Legal Philosophy, Literary Analysis, Social and Political Philosophy July 21, 2022 Leave a comment

On Disobedience by Erich Fromm

Introduction and Synopsis

Recently, I read this book on a whim. I was at a local bookstore and stopped to give it a quick glance; the first few pages interested me enough that I bought it. Looking back, I am honestly glad that I did. While some of Fromm’s pleadings have lost their urgency (e.g. the looming threat of nuclear war with the USSR (as it was known at that time)), he ultimately provides an insightful, scaffolded analysis about the concept of disobedience itself. Moreover, Fromm weaves together several other explanatory threads to properly contextualize disobedience and both its value and proper usage in contemporary society, using this as a vehicle to establish his political worldview known as humanistic socialism. 

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Excerpt: (4) Types of Guilt

Legal Philosophy, Morality and Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy July 2, 2022 Leave a comment

*Originally published on: https://philosophynow.org/issues/147/What_Is_Guilt

In his work, The Question of German Guilt (1947), the German existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers attempted to resolve the impossible – understanding the conscious and systematic mass murder of Jews, Romani, homosexuals, political opponents, and other groups defined or perceived by the Nazi regime as ‘undesirable’ as well as being a direct threat to its totalitarian ideology of a ‘pure’ Aryan state.

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(6) Types of Social Darwinists

Bioethics, Morality and Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Social and Political Philosophy June 24, 2022 Leave a comment

The Social Darwinist is someone who believes that the Darwinian theory of evolution — i.e. “survival of the fittest” — should be actively applied to people, societies, or nations. To the Social Darwinist, ALL of life is a struggle for survival in which the strongest naturally prosper at the expense of the weak — and it is right and natural that they should do so because that’s just the way things are, and/or natural law is Above Good and Evil.

Such people rarely concede that their chances for survival may have started higher than others due to reasons such as inherited wealth, social prestige, or even dumb luck. They typically state that we, collectively, have become complacent and stupid; they want to remove any trace of “weakness” and “stupidity” from society. It may seem to some that because humans aren’t currently enduring wars or other catastrophic extinction events, evolution in humans has ceased altogether (or at least paused — either one of which is highly problematic). If Social Darwinists do talk about evolution, they are very likely to talk about evolutionary levels and teleological evolution rather than Darwin’s actual theory (which was more of a pass-fail concept). Regardless, it is worth taking a look at the typology of Social Darwinists.

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