---
bibtex: @book{shapiro2003moral,
title={The moral foundations of politics},
author={Shapiro, I.},
isbn={9780300079074},
lccn={2003276735},
series={The Yale ISPS series},
url={http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Nq7hdox\_4HQC},
year={2003},
publisher={Yale University Press}
}
---
"Democrats hold that governments are legitimate when those who are affected by decisions play an appropriate role in making them and when there are meaningful opportunities to oppose the government of the day, replacing it with an alternative." (p5)
The enlightenment can be characterised as early/late & verificationist/falliblist. Early scholars (Hobbes, Locke) placed knowledge things created above knowledge of external things, thus politics and ethics were thought to be demostrable. (Workman/creation thesis) Later scholars placed a greater focus on empiric & falliblist knowledge.
"If there is a single overarching idea shared in common by adherents to different strands of Enlightenment thinking, it is faith in the power of human reason to understand the true nature of our circumstances and ourselves. " (p7)
"distinction between knowledge that depends on the human will versus knowledge that is independent of it." (p10)
Shapiro highlights 2 primary themes: the rise of science and its conflict with individual rights (analogous to free will/determinist argument)
"Reason’s pursuit of knowledge is seen as mediated by, and achieved through, science; and human improvement is mea- sured by the yardstick of individual rights that embody, and protect, human freedom. (p8)
Natural law was problematic for Locke. Natural law determined what was right & authority came from God. This caused conflict over the "the ontological status of natural law and in particular its relation to God’s will." (p11)
Shaprio notes the innovation in rights/laws distinction by noting German & romance languages conflate the two words. (p14)]
"Locke’s theory of ownership flows naturally out of this scheme, transforming the workmanship model of knowledge into a nor- mative theory of right. It is through acts of autonomous making that rights over what is created come into being: making entails ownership so that natural law is at bottom God’s natural right over his creation. " (p14)