Majority Rule Vs Individual Rights

The U.S. government is commonly characterized as being comprised of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. These two parties have differing views of how the government should be run, therefore creating a divide in legislative processes. Majority rule refers to a democracy being governed by decisions upon which a greater portion of people has agreed. However, U.S. citizens have basic and inalienable rights that can't be violated by the government. This book explores these basic and inalienable rights in relation to majority rule, and provides insight to how these concepts are laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

The justification of political authority is one of the long-standing issues of political philosophy, and one which persistently defies satisfactory solution. In this paperback edition of a highly successful study, Professor Martin sets out to provide an original justification by establishing a background framework for dealing with the problem. He begins by identifying the main elements of political authority, arguing that they need to be linked in order to create a political authority that can be described as justified. He then sketches a framework - a sample system of political institutions and conceptions which is internally coherent - to link these elements. The rest of the book fills in this outline. Professor Martin argues that rights are established patterns of acting or of being treated and are hence essentially institutional in character. The institutions that tend to be the most supportive and productive of individual rights are, he believes, democratic, and the central section of the book is devoted to the connection of rights with majority rule, democratic political institutions and conceptions. From this nexus, secondary lines are traced to political obligation (or allegiance) and to an eligible justification for using punishment to enforce the rights of individuals. Thus Professor Martin's analysis forms a distinctive and systematic approach to one particular style of government. This rethinking of some of the main topics in political theory is long overdue; it yields some striking conclusions about both the nature of rights and the nature of political authority itself. Reviews for the hardback edition: `analytical political theory at its best...thoroughly worked through, illuminating, and persuasive' Political Studies `he dicusses knowledgeably yet imaginatively one sort of political and legal system...I unreservedly assert that his institutional conception of rights deserves to be taken seriously as a very plausible alternative to the more familiar theories of Hart, Feinberg, Dworkin and Raz. Equally important are his discussions of the nature of democracy and the internal justification of punishment. Most impressive of all is his detailed demonstration of the internal coherence of the system of rights sketched in this book' Ethics `his book is valuable for presenting a distinctively political view of rights...the book is impressively scholarly, with references, when relevant, to most of the voluminous literature on rights. In this respect A System of Rights is a model work of philosophy: at once thoroughly steeped in the literature on its topic and rising above that literature to propose a novel, distinctive view' Mind `a rewarding and impressive book, which deals with a wide range of issues central to political philosophy in an interesting and original way. In this carefully argued examination and justification of a particular political system, Rex Martin offers an original account of rights, and links these rights with other political conceptions and institutions...to forms what he calls a "system of rights"...his discussion is rich and nuanced, and provides the philosophical groundwork for clearer thinking about the difficult and elusive relationship between rights and democracy' Canadian Journal of Political Science `What makes Martin's book so trenchant is that it can be read with great profit from different points of view...The broad scope and provocative arguments of Martin's work assure that it will be a focal point in philosophically-orientated debate on rights' Ratio Juris `Rex Martin has written the most important analysis and justification of political authority and obligation since T. H. Green's Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation... [A System of Rights is] rich in argument and unorthodox conclusions' Gerald F. Gaus, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

The U.S. government is commonly characterized as being comprised of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. These two parties have differing views of how the government should be run, therefore creating a divide in legislative processes. Majority rule refers to a democracy being governed by decisions upon which a greater portion of people has agreed. However, U.S. citizens have basic and inalienable rights that can't be violated by the government. This book explores these basic and inalienable rights in relation to majority rule, and provides insight to how these concepts are laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

This brilliant analysis of the nature of democracy draws on the hard-earned lessons of the ancient Greeks.

Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated. I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader. It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only means by which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole source of power. Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all classes, to the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality penetrated into the Government through the Church, and the being who as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of kings. The different relations of men became more complicated and more numerous as society gradually became more stable and more civilized. Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine and their mail. Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be perceptible in State affairs. The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Gradually the spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing taste for literature and art, opened chances of success to talent; science became a means of government, intelligence led to social power, and the man of letters took a part in the affairs of the State. The value attached to the privileges of birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility was beyond all price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced into the Government by the aristocracy itself.