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Taking the good of other people or the good of the group as a whole into consideration is a positive thing in order to help a democracy function. If each citizen in a democracy votes only for his or her own interests, and did not take into consideration what vote would most benefit the group as a whole, then nothing would ever get done because desires would be too spread apart. In this scenario, it would seem that interest groups or factions would be beneficial to society.
Second, let us consider the cons of having such factions. When people are caught up in an interest group, they tend to only consider what their group wants. People may fail to take their own individual needs into consideration, or, more likely, they may fail to consider what is beneficial for the whole, organic society.
However, the true consideration is whether or not democracy can exist without such interest groups or factions. I believe the answer is that a democracy will inevitably have factions, therefore it is irrelevant whether or not these factions are a good thing or a bad thing. There are only so many possible interests that people in a given society will hold, and aside from the few extremists...
The majority of people will have the same basic needs. Furthermore, this is complicated by the fact that no culture is compromised of only one group of people. Regardless of how unicultural, as opposed to multicultural, a society may be, divisions such as men and women, young and old, intellectual and physical talents, and - unless it is a communistic society - poor and wealthy. Something different will be in the best interest of the young than the old, for the men than the women, and so on.
A democracy functions by each person voting for what is best for themselves or what they think is best for society, and even then what someone believes is best for society tends to be based on what someone thinks it best for him or herself. Therefore, even if no one calls a fraction of the society an "interest group" or a "faction," humans will automatically break down into groups that think the same way. The basic reasoning behind democracy is that people are rational, and any rational person will notice that their interests match up with the interests of other people. Reasonably, upon
Behaviorism Behaviorism sought to understand observable behavior instead of the workings of the mind or even its functions. Some psychologists even insisted that psychology was the science of behavior. Watson denied the existence of a separate realm of conscious events. The purpose of Behaviorism, according to John Watson, was to predict and control behavior by understanding the effect of the environment on one's behavior. Watson was also influenced by Locke's blank
This in another deceptively simple painting, which evokes the relationship between geese and nature in a few brush strokes. The background of is blank and bare, referring to the concept of nothingness, and the two geese are sketched in relation to a few lines which represent reeds. The work suggests a sense of great depth and space as well as the mystery of nature. Robert Motherwell Figure 1. Elegy to the Spanish
Existence of God The philosophical questions I will try to answer and why they are of particular interest to me. Opinions that ordinary people tend to have on the issue The great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam profoundly influenced Western philosophy. In all of these religions, the existence of God is a central claim. For nearly a millennium from 500 S.D to about 1500 A.D., Western philosophy was the handmaiden
Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton to Duke to denounce the acts of the lacrosse players; and three, according to the pragmatic theory of truth, with is certainly in play in America, something reported is true if it is useful to believe it is true. Meanwhile, all the charges against the lacrosse players have been dropped (for lack of evidence), and the Attorney General of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, stated
In order to gain insight into these it is necessary that they all be combined into one. 6) Miller states the rule that visions are always mentioned as being 'visions'. 7) the rule relating to determine when a word is used literally or physically and states that if the word makes good sense as it stands, and does not violence to the simple laws of nature, then it must be understood
Taoism is one of the great philosophical systems and religions which has come from ancient China, debuting fully in the 4th century B.C. Taoism can be difficult or controversial to define because so much of Taoism has an elusive, adaptable quality to it, which can make it more challenging to peg down. It goes without saying that Taoism has been able to exert a tremendously powerful influence on Chinese aesthetics,