Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Al-Fārābī Metaphysics, And The Construction Of Social Knowledge: Is Deception Warranted If It Leads To Happiness?, Nicholas Andrew Oschman
Al-Fārābī Metaphysics, And The Construction Of Social Knowledge: Is Deception Warranted If It Leads To Happiness?, Nicholas Andrew Oschman
Dissertations (1934 -)
When questioning whether political deception can be ethically warranted, two competing intuitions jump to the fore. First, political deception is a fact of human life, used in the realpolitik of governance. Second, the ethical warrant of truth asserts itself as inexorably and indefatigably preferable to falsehood. Unfortunately, a cursory examination of the history of philosophy reveals a paucity of models to marry these basic intuitions. Some thinkers (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Kant, Mill, and Rawls) privilege the truth by neglecting the realpolitik, i.e., the truth is inviolate. Others (e.g., Machiavelli, Bentham, and the often infamous caché of 20th century dictators) …