Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Power: Political power is the ability to influence or control the behavior of others in the political sphere. It can be exercised through formal institutions, such as the government, or through informal means, such as persuasion or coercion. See also Coercion, Persuasion, Government, Governance, Society, Politics, Democracy, Ideology._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Christopher W. Morris on Power - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 201 Power/law/hierarchy/order/Morris: What does it mean to say that law is ultimately backed by sanctions or ultimately a matter of force? The term 'ultimate' is one of the most opaque in philosophy and social theory and should be used with care. Even if we were able to find in every legal system a hierarchical ordering of authorities, it is very unlikely that powers generally will be so ordered. That is, it is very unlikely that we can order power relations in this way, so that for any pair of powers one is greater than the other and the set of all powers is an ordering (i.e. transitive). If this is right, it means that the concept of an ultimate power will be ill-defined. This means that it is unclear and likely misleading to talk of 'ultimate' powers, for there may never be one power that is so placed that it is 'ultimate' or 'final' (see Morris, 1998(1): ch. 8). >Social order/Morris. 1. Morris, Christopher W. (1998) An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, Christopher W. 2004. „The Modern State“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Morris, Christopher W. Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28