The Founding Fathers Suspicion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Founding Fathers Suspicion - Essay Example During the 1700’s and 1800’s, people’s revolution was inherent and countries like the United States and France achieved their country’s liberties through these revolutions. But the transition of a revolutionary government to a more stable type of government also created certain fears to its founding leaders. Madison then feared at that time that since most of the masses were uneducated, a rule of the majority would turn into a â€Å"mob† rule with the majority abusing the rights of minority groups (Bardes et al., 2008, p. 7). Hence, the framers chose a democratic republic type of government, where sovereignty in the people as a whole as represented by their delegates. The greatest fear of every country is the abuse of authority and the corruption that their government may do to their people. One of the founding fathers Alexander Milton feared the elitist theory of choosing a few or small number of people â€Å"who exercise power to further their se lf interest (Bardes et al., 2008 p. 9). ... Madison [1803]) and prevent them from any form of abuse in their power and discretion. Framers of the Constitution have been aware of this possible abuse of authority that the government may have, and even if not specifically provided in the U.S. Constitution, debates at the Constitutional Convention justifies further this power, with Madison strengthening the judiciary saying that "A law violating a constitution established by the people themselves, would be considered by the Judges as null & void." (as cited in Ferrand,1911, p. 93). The framers where well aware of the possible corruption that even a democratic type of government may experience and even in our modern times, the same issue is relevant. La Porta et al. said that â€Å"the executive and the legislature may enact policies and pass laws that benefit themselves, democratic majorities, or allied interest groups † (as cited in Cordis, 2008, p. 380) Through this power of judicial review, the judiciary that is consider ed as apolitical is removed with doubts of possible â€Å"majotarian politics† influence that would restrict them to adopt measures that infringe on the basic rights of some, in order to follow the initial agreements that legislator or other elected official may have taken from their constituent in exchange for their votes (Hirschl, 2004, p. 4) Another important aspect that may be noticed in the United States Constitution is how the framers provided and made sure that each state had their own rights protected and independent from the federal government. The Tenth Amendment provides independence and power to the states for all other powers not specifically granted to the federal government. Through this, states may provide for

Gaunilo's argument from Anselm's point of view Essay

Gaunilo's argument from Anselm's point of view - Essay Example Gaunilo, a fellow monk and believer sought to oppose Anselm’s argument, saying it would force people to conclude existence of other non- existent things. His critic is usually described by philosophers as an overload idea, because he does not show how Anselm’s ideas are wrong but rather how it unsound in all applications, if it is unsound in one. Gaunilo argues that â€Å"god† in the argument placed by Anselm can be replaced by anything, in his case, â€Å"the perfect island. â€Å"Suppose we replace God with an island, this is how it would flow. Imagine a perfect island of which none like it is conceivable, now this idea exists in your mind. The existence of a perfect island in both the mind and in reality is greater than if it only exists in the mind. If the concept of a perfect island exists in the mind then we can imagine an island better than the â€Å"perfect island†. But we cannot imagine an island greater than this; we can conclude that this perf ect island exists. In defense of his theory, Anselm would argue that the idea of what entails a perfect island varies from one person to another, for example, to me, a perfect island would be one with sandy beaches and human occupation, while to another that would be one that is deserted and with abundance of let’s say fruits. ... In the second way he argues that no object can create itself, therefore there must be a first cause (God), who began the chain of existence of all things. Aquinas reconciled faith and reason, by borrowing heavily from Aristotle. The second cause is explained using the following steps; 1) The natural world has things that are caused by other things. There is therefore an order of efficient causes in the sensible world. Every sensible event that takes place has a distinct cause. 2) In the natural world, nothing can be the cause of itself. There is hardly a case in which an event in the natural world was caused by itself. Events occur that were caused by events rate than themselves. 3) In the natural world there cannot be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist. We can therefore say that causes are preceded by effects. 4) There exists a supernatural being that causes the first chain of events; therefore the cause of such events is called God. The supernatural force h as to be a person with immense power and with divine attributes such as being omnipresent. These inferences are drawn from nature and causation. This argument has some flaws for example the identity of the cause does not have to be God. It is flawed to assume that the cause of the events that take place in nature has to originate from one location for all of them. There is a possibility that there may be multiple causes, not related to each other. Moreover, the cause does not have to be supernatural, but could be other causes such as the universe. In conclusion, this theory begs the question as to why infinite causal chains are impossible, for example it can be assumed that there exists no beginning, middle or end time, therefore the