Date of Award
Spring 1995
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Rousseau, Mary F.
Second Advisor
Teske, Ronald J.
Third Advisor
Starr, William C.
Abstract
In the foreword to Yves R Simon's Philosophy of Democratic Government, Jerome G. Kerwin, Chairman of the Charles R Walgreen Foundation for the Study of American Institutions, states that the Foundation had decided to publish Simon's book as part of a series designed to defend democracy. The concept of democracy, Kerwin says, has been challenged twice during the first half of the twentieth century by totalitarian governments. He adds that fascism worked until it was destroyed from outside, but that "the need for a philosophy that shows democracy to be grounded firmly on rational principles - this need is apparent." In 1951, the year this book was published, Communism was the other totalitarian government challenging democracy. The year 1991 saw the disintegration of the Soviet Union, its totalitarian government destroyed from inside; the need for a philosophy showing the principles upon which democracy is founded would seem to be as important now as it was in 1951. If the emerging states wish to espouse some form of democratic government, then an exhaustive study of the principles governing a democracy is essential. Perhaps a more immediate problem is that a serious upsurge in crime accompanies the relaxation of authority in the developing states. Crime has become so serious a problem that it not only affects the citizens of the new states, but it is having international repercussions as well, necessitating the intervention of United States law enforcing agencies to set up offices overseas in an attempt to prevent further international involvement However, the present situation in the United States is little better, if at all. When 90% of people interviewed express the view that caning should be initiated in the United States for crimes of vandalism; when people living in the Cabrini-Green housing development in Chicago, Illinois, are willing to give up their right to be free of warrantless searches and seizures so that the criminals operating in the development and threatening the safety of the law-abiding residents can be discovered more easily; when every prison in the United States is over-crowded, and the cost of crime, the cost to individuals as well as to society, has reached an all-time high- when all these things take place, as they have, it becomes clear that Yves R Simon was correct when he said that freedom, if not balanced by authority, becomes license...