The following work is an effort to better understand commonwealths by exploring the circumstances, rights, and desires of those who found them or recognize their authority. While it is apparent that mankind’s affairs are governed largely by commonwealths or similar bodies, the reasons that men have for establishing them and the rights upon which their authority is established can be more difficult to grasp. In this work, differing perspectives on the condition of men in nature, the rights they naturally possess, and the primary desires that motivate them are considered in hopes of determining a commonwealth’s purpose. Visions and definitions of commonwealths given by the same philosophers are then reviewed and compared with one another to determine the ways that their respective views on man and his condition mold the arrangements they put forth. Better understanding the relationship between men, their circumstances, and the governments they create could be of great value to those trying to determine why existing commonwealths have taken their present forms. Such insight would also clarify which attributes of a commonwealth are most essential to ensuring that it accomplishes the purposes for which it was established.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/24074 |
| Date | 31 July 2017 |
| Creators | Harmon, Earle |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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