Nature and Artifice: An Essay on Conventionalism

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dc.contributor.advisorButterworth, Charles E.en_US
dc.contributor.authorNewton, Benjamin Patricken_US
dc.contributor.departmentGovernment and Politicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-09-26T05:30:21Z
dc.date.available2012-09-26T05:30:21Z
dc.date.issued2012en_US
dc.description.abstractConventionalism asserts that there are a variety of notions of justice, but no true one. The fundamental laws of any given society are said to be grounded, not on external considerations of natural right, but human agreements which change from society to society and age to age. Justice is viewed as arbitrary and the best regime a fiction. Political society is an artificial, not natural, means to achieve man's true end--individual pleasure. Thus the crucial problem raised by conventionalism is whether political society exists by convention or nature. This dissertation examines the central claim of conventionalism, namely, whether human beings gather together into political society by convention or nature. The former argument is given to the Roman Epicurean Lucretius; the latter, the Roman Academic Cicero.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/12948
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPolitical Scienceen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPhilosophyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledClassical studiesen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCiceroen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledConventionalismen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledDe Legibusen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledDe Natura Deorumen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledDe Rerum Naturaen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledLucretiusen_US
dc.titleNature and Artifice: An Essay on Conventionalismen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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