I’ve long preferred the term political philosophy over political science. There is a necessary human element to what should be considered good governance.
This article is from The Editor’s Corner, with insights, short-posts, links, and general ramblings from Editor/Owner Justin Stapley.
Philosophy is not a process of invention or creation. It’s the process of introspection upon human realities and the exposition of implicit discoveries in an explicit manner.
This is why I’ve always liked the term political philosophy more than political science. To call politics a science is to remove consideration of the necessary human element when crafting and considering what form of government is best and which policies we should pursue within this government. Political science creates theories for good governance and has often sought to impose those theories upon society. It has often done this without regard for the realities of human behavior.
Political philosophy, on the other hand, laid the foundation for the Enlightenment Era and the American Revolution. With political philosophies connected to human behavior, a form of government came into existence that recognized the vices and virtues of humanity. These philosophies built an infrastructure that minimizes vice and maximizes virtue through a separation of power and positive use of natural competition.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that as political philosophy devolved into political science over the last hundred years, politics has become more a process of management than one of government. The administration of national power now ignores the vices and virtues of humanity, has sought to consolidate power into a centralized authority, and engaged on a crusade of centrally planned economics, culture, and unitary law.
This new Machiavellian reality stymies natural competition and replaces it with a rat race for control of the unitary authority, thus minimizing virtue and maximizing vice as character, morals, and integrity become seen as stumbling blocks in the quest for control.
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