Stanford
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

Notes, Seminar in Social Philosophy

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date: October 3, 1961 to January 23, 1962?

Location: Atlanta, Ga.?

Genre: Essay

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education

Details

In these handwritten notes, composed on lined paper in a notebook, King introduces his Morehouse students to the fundamental ideas of several well-known theologians and philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. King relied heavily upon the works of William Kelley Wright and Arthur Cushman McGiffert to inform his lectures.

We are experiencing cold and whistling words winds of despair in a world packed with turbulence
While Russia is poisoning the natural physical atmosphere with megaton bombs, we in AmeAmirica is still poisoning the moral atmosphere with racial discrimination
We must invest our energies not in an hysterical anticommunism, but in a positive democratic dynamism which will lift the economic, social and political standard of the world.

Augustine and Aquinas
     As the one great institution of antiquity that had survived the Dark [remainder missing].1
     What are the four cardinal virtues wisdom, courage, temperance & justice These can be appreciated apart from divine grace. These are “natural virtues”
     The Christian virtue—faith hope and charity—are imparted to man by divine grace.2

Volume 23
Machianvelli
     The Prince
     “The Art of War”
     “The Way Princes Keep Faith”3
Hobbes
     The Leviathan
       Part I   Natural Condition of Mankind
                     First and Second Natural Laws
                     Other Laws of Nature
       Part II  Causes, Generation and Definition of A Commonwealth
                     Rights of Sovereigns4
Aristotle (cont.)
     Inferiority of Women. Woman is to man as the slave is to the master, the manual to the mental worker, the barbarian to the Greek.
     The male is by nature superior; the one rules and the other is ruled. Woman is weak of will, and therefore incapable of independence of character or position5

Criticism of Aristotle

  1. He was so enamored of the intellectual life that he failed to see the dignity of labor.6
  2. This lead him to tolerate slavery. No man is good enough to own another man.
  3. There is no evidence for his idea of the inferiority of women. Plato was nearer the truth at this point.
  4. At point Aristotle is moderate in excess. His immoderate moderation has often been misused
  5. His revolt against Plato’s communism caused him to fail to see the truth in collectivism. He does not see that individual control of the mean of production was stimulating only when these means were so simple as to be purchasable by any man; and that their increasing complexity and cost lead to a dangerous centralization of ownership, and finally disruptive inequality7

But after all, these are quite inessential criticisms of what remains one of the most marvelous and influential systems of thought ever put together by a single mind. It may be doubted if any other thinker contributed so much to the enlightenment of the world. Every later age has drawn upon Aristotle and stands upon his shoulders to see the truth8

Augustine & Aquinas
     The long period generally designated “medieval” extended from the beginning of the Christian era to the Renaissance. The two most outstanding thinkers of this period were Saint Augustine & S. Thomas Aquinas.9

Augustine
     Born in 354 at Tagaste, a small town in Morthern Africa. His father, a pagan, was an official of the town. His mother, Monnica, was a Christian of outstanding character.
     His exceptional abilities were noted in his studies at Carthage.10
     In his search for truth he became a Manichaean for nine years (373–384)11 This system was a strange medley of idealism and materialism, asceticism and license, theosophy and rationalism.12
     About 384 he began to turn away from the fanatical cosmological systems of the Manichaeans. It was at that time that he came under the influence of Neo-Platonism.13
     The immediate results was his conversion to the Catholic Church. He was bap­tized by Bishop Ambrose in (387).14
     He came to believe that Platonism and Catholic Christianity were at bottom one.15

  1. At the center of Augustine’s thought was his doctrine of God.16 His doctrine of God was at bottom Neo Platonic17 God is absolute being. He is himself reality and the only reality. All else is temporary and changing.18
         Being real and unchangeable, God is eternal, the only true and eternal substance. For the difference between eternity and time is not a matter of duration; eternity is not mere enless time. Where there is time there is change. Where there is eternnal there is no change.19
         As God is the only real being, his is the only real good.20
         Augustine adds the emphasis of God as personality, or more particularly he thinks of God in terms of will21
         God is also creator. The world is not an emination from God; it is due to God’s voluntary acts, an act of will.22
         God sustains the world. Without this unbroken exercise of divine power, the world would lapse into nothingness23
         Evil is non-being. The tendency of things to lapse again into the nothingness from which they came. Evil is nothing positive It is the absence of Good.24
         The sin of man grows out of his constant tendency to lapse again into nothing­ness; to choose the less [word illegible] of the greater, the choice of self instead of God.25
         He believes in original sin.
         Adams sin was not due to the possession of a fleshly nature. His flesh was created good. His fall was due to pride26
         Upon Augustine’s idea of God as absolute will rested his famous doctrine of dou­ble predestination, the foreordaining of some to salvation and others to damnation.27
         To those whom God predestines to eternal life he gives the gift of perseverance that they may endure to the end.28
  2. Augustine’s idea of the Church
    (a) He distinguishes between the Church visible and the invisible Church, the eternal institution and the inner communion of saints29
         There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church, which is the body of Christ.30
         The visible Church is identicle with the kingdom of God.31
         The visible church provides the sacrements and is the channel of grace32
  3. The City of God
         The book is erected upon the conception of two states differing fundamentally in their principles but continually touching each other—the people of God and the people of this world.33
         The city of God is made up of good angels and righteous men, the latter of the fallen angels and wicked men. They had their origin in the strife that broke out among the angels, and hence they antedate the creation of the world, but they are perpetuated on earth, the one in the fellowship of true Christians, the other in the rest of mankind, and they have visible embodiment, the former in the Cathilic Church, and the latter in the Roman Empire34
         “Why was the City of God written?”

Thomas Aquinas
     Born in 1225 in central Italy. He died before he was fifty on his way to attend the Council of Lyons in 1274
     He sought to reinterpret the Christian faith in the light of Aristotelian philosophy.35
     Western theology from the time of Plato was Augustine was dominated by Plato or more especially Neoplatonism. Among the many differences between Plato and Aristotle the most significant for our present purposes was epistemalolical. Plato assumed that a knowledge of unseen things realities is possible quite apart from indi­vidual things, man has a faculty by which he can see the spirit world, while Aristotle insisted that all knowledge come through the senses. How on the basis of Aristotle thought could a Christian know God?36
     Thomas grappled with this problem be drawing two sharp distinctions: the one between natural and revealed theology and the other between the conditions of knowledge in this life and in the next.37
     Natural theology or philosophy begins with the creature and ascends to God; rev­eled theology [or?] theology begins with God and decends to man or the creatures.38
     Natural theology comprises all these truths concerning God and his relation to man and the world that may be deduced from sense-experience.39
     We see the shape that natural theology took in his greatest, and certainly most original work Summa Contra Gentiles40
     In Book one he sets out to prove the existence of God He confined himself to a posteriori arguments from effect to cause.
     He rejected Anselms ontological proof for a the idea of the most perfect being. He rejected the notion that the idea of God is inborn and therefore needs no proof41
     Among the effects is motion, which can be accounted for only by trancing it back to an unmoved mover. Object are not selfmove but remain at rest until moved from without.42
     He also argues for existence of things to a first cause.43

From Order to an Orderer
     After asking how the existence of God can be proved on Aristotelian principles, Thomas turns to the nature of God:44
     God is eternal45
     He is necessary not contingent46
     He has no admixture of potentiality but is Pure Actuality
     He is Simple, not compound and divisible into parts
     He is incorporeal47
     God is perfect, for imperfection implies potentiality.
     Being perfect God is God.48
     God is infinite in goodness, power, and essence.49
     God is intelligent. God is will.50
     God is the cause of the being to all that is.51
     All thing were created out of nothing.52
     Creation was necessary to him, but was an act of free will motivated by goodness and controlled by wisdom.53
     He believed in immortality54
     The end of life is vision of God55
Aquinas Ethics
     Man’s last end is happiness which consist in vision of God.

Law
     Eternal Law—the absolute principle of Wisdom by which God governs the universe
     Natural Law—it is eternal law as exist in man. Since reason is the controling fac­ulty of man, the natural law is the law of reason.
     Human Law—the enactment of earthly governments. They are derived from and grounded in the natural law
     Divine Law—it is revealed directly from God in its two historic forms—Judaism & Christianity.56

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527)
     In his political writings he attempted to avoid everything fantastic and visionary.57
     He wanted Italy to succeed become united and great. He thought that a prince would be morally justified in seeking to accomplish this by any means whatsoever.
     Discuss Means and ends58
     He was the first political philosopher to try to understand politics as it actually goes on. Hence he is often call the father of modern political science.59
     In Machiavelli there is a dualism between
        Sacred & Secular
        ind ethics & Group ethics

Hobbes How He sees man in his natural State
     In a condition of nature, prior to the formation of a political state, everyone, according to Hobbes, would seek his own preservation, and the gratification of his own desires for selfish pleasure, such as gain and glory.60 There would be no such thing as [strikeout illegible] law and injustice. The inevitable result would be a war of all against all. Man would alway be in war or in constant fear of attack.61
     How does he justify his views? It is implied in the conduct of civilized men. When we go to bed we lock our doors62
     In international relations we see that force and fraud are the cardinal virtue in time of war especially63
     What do men do about this condition? Men naturally want peace and security, and to escape from the misery and horror of their natural condition. They they have effected this by the institution of a commonwealth, based on mutual consent, by which each ind. agrees to obey the commands of a common soverign which may be an individual (monarchy) or a group of men (aristocracy or democracy64

What is Hobbes’ distinction between natural Right & Natural law?
     Hobbes ethical & Political philosophy is based wholly on egotism and hedonism
     Men do and should act only in accordance with their own interest. In the condi­tion of nature a man has a natural right to do anything that he pleases, and to pos­sess anything that he can take and hold against all comer.65
     A Natural law is a general rule which man discovers by reason that it is his interest to obey, and so is his obligation to do so (In his naturalistic ethic interest and moral obligation are identical.)66

What are the natural law67

  1. First & fundamental is that man should seek peace and follow it.
  2. “that a man be willing, when others are so too This is his naturalistic interpreta of the Golden rule. The mutual and voluntary runication of natural rights is effected through a covenant or contract.
  3. “that men perform their covenants made”
  4. The obligation to good will
  5. mutual accommodation
  6. pardoning the offenses of the repentant.
  7. infliction of punishments only for the correction of offenders, and not for vengeance
  8. avoidance of contempt or hatred of others
  9. Acknowledgment of all men as equals one’s equal
  10. a just or proportionate distribution of goods held in common; self conduct and settlement of dispute by judicial process.

Rousseau (1712–1778), a native of Geneva. Led an adventurous but unrestrained and unhappy life spent mostly in France.
     During his last years he suffered from persicution complexes and must have been at times partially insane. He was a man of with abnormally intense feelings and emo­tions. He lacked self control. His actual life conduct fell far short of the lofty ideals which he proclaimed to the world. One redeeming feature is the honesty with which he acknowledges his weakneses and shortcomings in his Confessions.68
     He was a at musician and had a great love for the Arts. He is considered the fore­runner of the Romantic movement.69
     He understood the common man, since he was povety stricken himself70
     Almost all philosophers since Bacon had prided themselves upon the triumph of reason over emotion, and had looked to the unhampered progress of the arts and sciences for the liberation and advancement of man. Rousseau, on the contrary, regarded the evils of the times as the fruits of an artificial civilization, and in his early essays he praised the life of primitive man71
     At this point he was confident that man was by nature good.
     Even [strikeout illegible] in these early works Rousseau does not deny that civiliza­tion has brought some benefits72
     In the Social Contract Rousseau is more constructive. It is possible for a critical reader today to eliminate from this book the vagaries and impracticalities, and to extract a valuable philosophy for a democratic state.
     It exercised considerable influence in the development of republican ideals in France and the United States. It contributed to the Declaration of Independence73
     Rousseau is still regard as the author who above all others inspired the French Revolution. His political philosophy represented the passing from the traditional theories rooted in the Middle Ages to the modern conception of the state. His influ­ence may be seen in the moral philosophy of Kant and Goethe.
     In the opening paragraph of Social Contract Roussau states: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” and poses the question, why? Society as opposed to a “state of nature” is only justified on the grounds that men, by nature free, may from the purposes of protection and self-improvement consent to a goverment, or form a social contract.74
     He believes in direct government by the citizens, who should in public meetings and elections make the laws.
     He recognized the civil and political rights of every citizen. In this he represented an advance over those who thought only of the Middle Class & the Aristocracy. In this work he realizes that true freedom is found in a state in which the natural rights of all men to life, liberty and property will be conserved by laws which the people impose upon themselves. Such laws should be the expression of the general will in which each citizens wills the common good.75

{Jan 16
Miss Adam      ab
"   Worthy        ab.
Mr. Bond          ab
Mr. Black          ab
Mr. Brown        ab
Mr. Wright—ab.}76

John Locke (1632–1704)
     He was born the same year as Spinoza. Like Spinoza, he had delicate health and came of a consumptive family. He would probably have died young if he had not been prudent enough to study medicin and learn to conserve his health.
     He lead a fairly active life, toward the close of which he was able to publish a series of books that determined the general course of philosophical thought for nearly a century.77
Locke’s Second Treatise On Civil Government.
     Like Hobbes, Locke thinks of the establishment of the civil state as a result of a social contract, and that the state of nature that preceded it was one of perfect freedom and equality. Unlike Hobbes, however, he does not believe that the state of nature was a condition of license. In it man knew that no person should be harmed78
     Compare the social Contract theories of Hobbes, Rosseau, Locke?
     but to the community, so that thenceforth the decision of the community becomes law.79
     What, for Locke, are the principle natural right that society should preserve? Life, Liberty and property.80
     For the security of the people governmental powers should be divided between the legislative and the executive and if disputes arise between the two, the people, whose agents both are, have the right to make the final decision.
     {What justifies Revolution}
     If a government refuses to accede to the wishes of the people, the latter, after they have protested in vain in every peaceful manner, have a right to resort to arms, and make “an appeal to Heaven” to recognize the justice of the cause.81
     The Declaration of Ind. of 1776 was conceived in accordance with the philosophy of Locke. In it the revolting colonist recount repeated violations of their natural rights.
     The American Constitution of 1787 also shows the influence of Locke.
(1) The division of government into executive & legislative
(2) It is a compact of the people.82
Locke on Property
     The origin of property Locke found in first occupancy mixed with labor.
     In primitive conditions, when there was land in abundance, the man who enclosed a piece of land and cultivated it acquired the moral right to the ground as well as to its produce.83
     Locke’s With the invention of money, Locke observes that men became able to accumulate wealth which need not be immediately consumed
     Locke’s view that capital is the product of labor was in the 19th century to give rise to socialistic theories of which Locke would have thorougly disapproved.84

The Idealistic Period
Kant (1724–1804)
     He spent his whole life in and near the province of Konigsberg in East Prussia.
     He was brough up in humble circumstances. His mother died when he was 12 and his father when he was 21. His parent were strict adherents of the sect of the Pietists.
     Kant was a brilliant student at the university, and after graduation for some years supported himself as a private tutor.85

     In the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant endeavors to discover an a priori principle which ought the will, and put ethics upon an absolutly certain foundation What is that principle? The a priori principle which should regulate all conduct is a command or imperative, and since it admits of no exceptions it is categorical. Kant’s name for it is the categorical imperative.
     {What is the difference between a hypothetical & categorical Imperative?}
     Kant is an uncompromising rationalists in moral philosophy, and will make no concession to empiricism.86
     Kant believes that if a rational being is honest, he will admit as a self evident proposition that the only absolutly good thing conceivable in the world is “a good will,” or as we should say, “good character”. Even such virtues as courage & persever­ance can be used for evil purposes, so they cannot be regarded as intrinsically good. But a good will is good in itself, in that it acts solely on the basis of duty regardless of consequences.87
     Such a good will obey the categorical imperative. Kant gives various formulations of this imperative
     (1) “Act solely on that principle which you would be willing might become a universal law of nature on which every other person would also always act.” (a) suicide (b) lying about debts (3) the person who is tempted to lead a life of idleness and not develope his capacity. (4) The man who refuses to give assistance to others when it is in his power to do so.88
     {Second formulation} (2) “Treat every human being, including yourself, as an end in himself and not as a means to the advantage of anyone else.” In other words respect yourself and others.89
     (3) “One must always act as if one were a member of an ideal Kingdom of ends, in which everyone would be at the same time sovereign and subject.”90
     In such a kingdom of ends every person would act in accordance with the cat­egorical imperative which means that he would act rationally. Consequently the laws of such a kingdom would be willed by everybody and obeyed by everyone; everyone would be sovereign and make the laws which as subjects they obey.91

1. William Kelley Wright, A History of Modern Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 15: “As the one great institution of antiquity that had survived the Dark Ages, the Christian Church became the chief civilizing agency in shaping the life and thought of the later Middle Ages.” King had a copy of Wright’s book, with marginal comments, in his personal library.

2. Wright, History, p. 16: “St. Thomas recognizes the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, tem­perance, and justice as ‘natural virtues’ which man can appreciate apart from divine grace. To these he adds the three ‘Christian virtues’ of St. Paul—faith, hope, and charity—which are imparted to man by divine beneficence.”

3. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War [Dell’Arte della guerra] (1521). “Concerning the Way in which Princes Should Keep Faith” is chapter XVIII in The Prince (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952). King had a copy of The Prince in his library.

4. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Or, Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952). King had a copy of Hobbes’s book in his personal library.

5. Cf. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1933), p. 66. King had a copy of Durant’s book in his personal library.

6. Ernest Barker, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (New York: Dover, 1959), p. 371.

7. Durant, Story, p. 72: “[Aristotle] forgets that Plato’s communism was meant only for the élite, the unselfish and ungreedy few; and he comes deviously to a Platonic result when he says that though property should be private, its use should be as far as possible common. He does not see (and perhaps he could not be expected in his early day to see) that individual control of the means of production was stimulating and salutary only when these means were so simple as to be purchasable by any man; and that their increasing complexity and cost lead to a dangerous centralization of ownership and power, and to an artificial and finally disruptive inequality.”

8. Cf. Durant, Story, pp. 72–73.

9. Cf. Gordon Haddon Clark, Readings in Ethics (New York: F. S. Crofts, 1935), p. 134.

10. Cf. Clark, Readings, p. 134.

11. Cf. J. L. Neve, “Augustine in Some Special Phases of His Development,” Bibliotheca Sacra 89 (1932), p. 234.

12. Cf. Clark, Readings, p. 134.

13. Cf. Neve, “Augustine,” p. 234.

14. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought, vol. 2, The West From Tertullian to Erasmus (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1933), pp. 77, 79. McGiffert claimed that Augustine was baptized in 381 by Bishop Ambrose, while Clark put the correct date at Easter Sunday 387, but failed to specify by whom (see also Clark, Readings, p. 135).

15. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 77.

16. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 83.

17. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 84.

18. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 85.

19. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 85–86.

20. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 86.

21. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 87.

22. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 88.

23. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 88.

24. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 89.

25. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 89–90.

26. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 90.

27. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 95.

28. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 96.

29. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 110.

30. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 112.

31. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 110.

32. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 112.

33. Cf. Neve, “Augustine,” p. 243.

34. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 116–117.

35. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 259–260.

36. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 260.

37. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 260.

38. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 261.

39. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 261.

40. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 261.

41. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 262.

42. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 262.

43. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 262.

44. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 263.

45. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 263.

46. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 263–264.

47. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 264.

48. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 264.

49. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 264.

50. Cf. McGiffert, History, pp. 264–265.

51. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 266.

52. McGiffert, History, p. 266.

53. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 266.

54. McGiffert, History, pp. 267–268.

55. McGiffert, History, p. 268.

56. Cf. McGiffert, History, p. 281.

57. Cf. Wright, History, p. 26.

58. Cf. Wright, History, p. 26; Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 25: “In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result. For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest.”

59. Cf. Wright, History, p. 26.

60. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 85: “So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue.”

61. Cf. Wright, History, p. 63.

62. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 85: “Let him therefore consider with himself: when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him … Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words?” Wright quotes this passage in History, p. 64.

63. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 86; cf. Wright, History, p. 64.

64. Cf. Wright, History, p. 64.

65. Cf. Wright, History, p. 65.

66. Cf. Wright, History, p. 65.

67. Wright’s History of Modern Philosophy covers Hobbes’s natural laws on pp. 65–66.

68. Cf. Wright, History, p. 234.

69. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 234–235.

70. Cf. Wright, History, p. 235.

71. Cf. Wright, History, p. 235.

72. Cf. Wright, History, p. 236.

73. Cf. Wright, History, p. 236.

74. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses (1762).

75. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 236–237.

76. In his seminar notes, King handwrote this list of students absent from his course on 16 January.

77. Cf. Wright, History, p. 141.

78. Cf. Wright, History, p. 166.

79. Wright, History, p. 167.

80. Cf. Wright, History, p. 167.

81. Cf. Wright, History, p. 168.

82. Wright, History, p. 168.

83. Cf. Wright, History, p. 168.

84. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 168–169.

85. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 255–256.

86. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 281–282.

87. Cf. Wright, History, p. 282.

88. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 282–283.

89. Cf. Wright, History, pp. 283–284.

90. Cf. Wright, History, p. 285.

91. Cf. Wright, History, p. 285.

Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.