Author: Morris Ginsberg, D. Lit
Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB
Published: 2023-10-27
Total Pages: 169
ISBN-13:
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Speculations on social and political problems must from the nature of the case have a psycho logical basis, conscious or unconscious. Whether we are concerned with a description or analysis of the actual behaviour of human beings in the various spheres of activity, or with the problem of ideals or principles which man ought to follow, a knowledge of human potentialities, of the nature of his innate and acquired equipment, of the motive forces of life and conduct is evidently of the greatest importance. And we do in fact find that writers on Politics, Economics, Ethics and the like proceed on certain assumptions as to what recalled the “laws of human nature” Thus to take but a few instances, the political theory of Hobbes rests on the assumption that man is moved to action by fundamentally egoistic impulses and that the basis of obedience is fear, while such writers as Sir Henry Maine find that basis in habit and others again in rational consent. The Utilitarian School in politics and ethics was based on certain psychological assumptions, though they were not all consciously realized by the members of that school in an equal degree, viz. that human action is guided entirely by a conscious pursuit of ends, that the sole motive of action is the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain and that happiness is identical, with a sum of pleasures. These or similar psychological assumptions also underlay the economics of the laissez-faire school Again in popular thinking on social matters nothing is more common Than a reference to what are supposed to be the laws of human nature. Human nature being what it is, it is often maintained, wars are inevitable Others argue that while human nature remains the same, Socialism is utterly impracticable and open competition the only method of securing initiative and energy in industry. One of the most common dogmas in this connexion is the immutability of human nature, which is invariably urged against any new proposals. One would imagine that we were in fact possessed of a science of human character and conduct which would enable us to speak with any certainty of what is and what is not attainable by human endeavour, whereas the truth is that such a science is yet in its infancy and has hardly gone beyond the stage of rough empirical generalization Despite the obvious importance of a knowledge of the psychological factors operating in political and social affairs, the conscious application of psycho logical principles to social theory or rather the attempt to build up a social psychology is a recent growth. The movement may be said to begin in the latter half of the nineteenth century and is exceedingly complex. No attempt can be made here to disentangle the various elements that contributed to the creation of an atmosphere favourable to the psychological point of view; but the following phases may be distinguished....FROM THE BOOKS.
