Hobbes’ State of Nature seen on the Open Ocean Waters

In the modern world, one can see variations of Thomas Hobbes’ State of Nature through the open waters of the Earth’s oceans.  The Somali pirates are a perfect example of this because the oceans make for the perfect situation for Hobbes’ State of Nature by allowing for a realm of no governing authority, allowing for [...]

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Lack of Political Scientists in Gov. and Academic World

Joseph Nye of the Washington Post wrote a column about a lack of top-scholars of international policy entering the government or contributing to the academic world. “President Obama has appointed some distinguished academic economists and lawyers to his administration, but few high-ranking political scientists have been named. In fact, the editors of a recent poll [...]

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Recent CNN.com article about Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” outburst

We recently turned in the essay asking us to examine Joe Wilson’s “breach of U.S. protocol” and whether or not Dr. King/Socrates would support it and how they would do so. I defended Wilson’s actions through Socrates’ argument. Socrates claims that if a man truly believes he is right, he must justify his beliefs and [...]

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Constitutional Court of Italy rules against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and Hobbes’ ideas of immunity for sovereigns

This week, the Constitutional Court of Italy has ruled against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, declaring that he is not immune from prosecution while he is in office (see the following BBC News article for their coverage of the events: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8295716.stm).  This ruling, passed by the court by a 9-6 margin, will now allow him [...]

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Blackmail in Relation to Reputation

In his article “The Art of Blackmail,” John Schwartz discusses blackmail in response to an incident last week in which a man demanded $2 million from David Letterman in return for keeping Letterman’s sexual affairs a secret.  Letterman had the man arrested, and then he admitted his actions to all of his viewers. I thought [...]

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