Extended Essays 2021

covenant between power and subject. Without the ability to instate and remove power

in the hands of the people, a functioning democracy is unachievable, disrupting

Hobbes’s argument at its most sensitive point. Hobbes’s argument for the absolute

power of the state is innately undemocratic and outlaws the voice of the majority. In

addition, Arendt posits the analytical argument that dissent is necessary to a

functioning democracy. Both as a system of accountability to ensure that policies

enacted by the majority are mutually beneficial. The disobedient citizen aims to effect

change and maintain the rights and freedoms outlined by the constitution.

Kant furthers Hobbes argument; predominantly through the way the state is positioned

and formed. The fundamental fault Kant finds with the concept of rebellion is that

through the state being the embodiment of all right, to rebel against it is incoherent.

Though Arendt claims that government has a duty to the people, Kant finds that simply

by holding power government can determine what justice is for society. Kant’s theory

is established most clearly in the following ‘ modus ponens’ form arguments:

p ⊃ q

P1

If the state is the embodiment of all right, then the people

have no right to rebel.

P2

The state is the embodiment of all right.

p

∴ q

MC

Therefore, the people must not rebel.

Although the argument is deductively logical and valid as the antecedent is being

affirmed, premise 2 is unsound. Kant assumes that the state will be the embodiment

of all right which is ambiguous. Increasingly when evaluating modern-day political

regimes, it is evident that the state does not objectively embody the righteousness

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