The Institution and the Individual: Essays in Political Science-Social Ethics

Paul F. deLespinasse

Introduction

...in which it is argued that it is better to be doctrinaire than to be confused or irrelevant.

 

I. On Classifying People

...which discusses three ways an individual can go about deciding how to behave toward his fellow man.

II. Two Fundamental Relationships-Between-Individuals

...wherein concepts developed by a theologian and a sociologist are employed to show that lying is an inherent tendency of political discourse.

III. The Individual and Rational Action

...which shows that an action may be rational without being moral and that it is therefore dangerous to ignore social ethics when studying political causality.

IV. The Individual, the Valued and the Valuable

...in which it is argued that although an individual's values can be neighter rational nor irrational, the individual may be able to change--and hopefully improve--his values by a rational process.

V. The Aggregation of Unanticipated Consequences

...which explains how the innocuous side effects of private actions can sometimes add up to produce public catastrophes, and why the social scientists must be interested in this problem.

VI. The Individual and the Awful Inertia of Institutions

...wherein the methods of the reformer are constrasted with those of the revolutionary and the outlook o fthe latter is roundly denounced.

VII. The Necessity and Dangers of Thinking Big

...which attempts to pull together some of the main themes of the preceding six essays and to point out the dangers of overestimating the importance of politics in the lives of men.