Mugen's Public Library
Political Theory
When is Violent Resistance Justified?
Is there a difference in kind between non-violent civil disobedience and violent resistance or is it merely a difference in degree? When if ever is an individual faced with an unjust law justified in moving from non-violent disobedience to violent action? The paper will explore the differing characteristics of civil disobedience and violent resistance but will argue that they are both different degrees of distrust in the state. I will then argue that when an individual is faced with an unjust law it is justified to move from non-violent disobedience to violent action when he has exhausted legal means, acted under the premise of civil disobedience, and has then concluded that the state has overlooked its duty to justice and its constituents deeming it an unjust state. The paper will establish this premise by first arguing why civil disobedience is no longer viable under an unjust state, second why the conditions differ between civil disobedience and violent resistance, and third the paper will consider counterarguments to the premise and respond to them.
Coming Soon
I'm a paragraph. New and exiting stuff coming soon!!
The Immovable Olive Tree and the Unstoppable Force: The Obstacles to Deliberation Between Palestine and Israel
This paper examines the challenges to deliberation between Palestinians and Israelis under the Arendtian and Habbermasian conceptions of ideal communication. It draws on Palestinian and Israeli sources to determine a historically consistent account of the area’s factual reality. In doing so, the paper considers the asymmetric power relations between the two states and the impacts of occupation on Palestine’s embryonic constitution. By calling on legal critical race theorists and canadian indigenous law as the product of a completed colonial campaign, this paper tracks the genesis of Palestinian property law and situates it in an international legal framework. After developing an account of the contentious political and legal topography of modern day Palestine and Israel, this paper considers the phenomenological impacts of colonization on Palestinian’s experiences of time, statehood and history. In its concluding remarks, a Kantian model for cosmopolitan revolution is utilized for broadening the scope of ideal communication between Palestinians and Israelis in a globalizing world.
Self, Friendship, and Community
Over the last few weeks, I’ve poured myself in conversation with a childhood friend on the subject of friendships. Growing up in a broken home, my friendships offered me refuge and the redemption of a love I’ve learned to fear and deny myself. In the enterprising eyes of my friend, these relations of dependency were an unprofitable distraction from an otherwise empowering solitude. In this paper, I will examine the roles of individualist and relational conceptions of the self in regard to self-love and its limits. I will determine that both conceptions are necessary considerations when developing healthy and lasting companion friendships. Concerns for the independence of an individual’s heart and mind underlie healthy relations with friends. In turn, a wholly individualistic self-interest precludes one from being a good friend to others and one’s self.
Freedom, Autonomy & Love in Ancient Greek, Medieval and Contemporary Political Thought
MY THESIS!!!
While the quest for freedom has not evaded any period of human intellectual history, the purported location of these keys has changed depending on the thinker, the period, and the form of freedom in question. Freedom from causal determinacy of the material world has often been interpreted as freedom from our own impulsive drives for pleasure and survival, or even from the ontological continuity of time and contiguity of space. Personal liberation of minds through a state-assisted rational investigation of the Good in the ancient Greek and medieval Arab worlds was prevalent in early political thought. Collective liberation of the disenfranchised from a tyrannical elite through civil disobedience or revolt on the other hand, with a few exceptions in early Greek and medieval thought, has largely gone unframed until the 18th century. It’s important to note that while philosophers will be developing their conceptual foundations of freedom in dialogue with the historical facts and ideological norms of their times, it is common for their views to diverge from the collective and epochal conscience. This work will explore the history of the philosophical concept of political freedom.
