MORAL AND

CITIZENSHIP
EDUCATION
 Chapter One
Understanding Civics And Ethics
Chapter Two
Approaches To Ethics
Chapter Three
Ethical Decision Making And Moral
Judgments
Chapter Four
State, Government And Citizenship
Chapter Five
Constitution, Democracy And Human
Rights
 CHAPTER ONE
1. Understanding Civics and Ethics
1.1. Defining Civics, Ethics, Morality
 What does civic education mean?
 The subject Civics assumed different names and purposes
depending on countries’ ideologies.
 Thus the definition of the discipline vary across States. For
instance,
 Terms such as Right Education (in South Africa),
 Citizenship Education (in United States of America
and Germany),
 Citizenship and Character Education (in
Singapore),
 Civics and Ethical Education (in Ethiopia)
 The most cited definition of civic education is an
education that studies about the rights and
responsibilities of citizens of a politically
organized group of people.
 But different writers define it in many ways. For
instance Patrick (1986) defines civic education as
the knowledge of the constitutions, the principles,
values, history and application to contemporary
life.
 Citizenship education can be understood as the
knowledge, means, and activities designed to
encourage students to participate actively in
democratic life, accepting and exercising their
rights and responsibilities.
 United Nations Development Program (UNDP,
2004) defines civic education as a way of
learning for effective participation in a
democratic and development process.
 Aggarwal (1982) linked civic education to the
development of ideas, habits, behaviors and
useful attitudes in the individual which enables
him to be a useful member of the society.
 Still the subject matter can be also defined as the
process of helping young people acquire and learn to
use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will
prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens
throughout their lives.
 Maximal and Minimal Civic Education.
 The minimal concept of civic education is
content-led, teacher-based, whole-class teaching
and examination-based assessment
 However, the maximal concept of civic education
is comprised of knowledge, values and skills, and
aims to prepare students for active, responsible
participation
 Generally, civic education is highly dependent on
interactive teaching, which requires discussion,
debate and the creation of many opportunities for
students to participate effectively.
 The Definition and Nature of Ethics and
Morality
What Ethics is?
 Ethics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to
understand people’s moral beliefs and actions
 Ethics, or moral philosophy, considers theories
about what human beings are capable of
doing, if they are to live an ethically good life.
 Ethics also explores the meaning and the
ranking of different ethical values, such as
honesty, autonomy, equality and justice.
 What is Morality?
 The term Morality is derived from the Latin
moralitas to mean “manner, character, proper
behavior”.
 It can be used to mean the generally accepted
code of conduct in a society, or within a
subgroup of society.
 It relates to those values to which we ought to
aspire and those values shared within a culture,
religious, secular, or philosophical community.
 All ethical questions involve a decision about
what one should do/ought to do in a specific
instance.
 Generally, Ethics is:
 The critical examination and evaluation of
what is good, evil, right and wrong in human
conduct (Guy, 2001).
 A specific set of principles, values and
guidelines for a particular group or
organization (Guy, 2001).
 The study of goodness, right action and moral
responsibility, (Madden, 2000).
 Terms such as morality and ethics are often
used interchangeably but
 Ethics is usually associated with a
certain conduct within a profession, for
example, the code of ethics for the
teaching profession and
 Morality is a more general term
referring to the character of individuals
and community.
Ethics and Law
 Contrary to morals and ethics, laws are norms,
formally approved by state, power or national
or international political bodies.
 Many laws are instituted in order to promote well-
being, resolve conflicts of interest, and promote
social harmony.
 However, there are several reasons why ethics is
not law.
 First, some actions that are illegal may not be
unethical. Speeding is illegal, but one might have an
ethical obligation to break the speed limit in order to
transport someone to a hospital in an emergency.
 Second, some actions that are unethical may not be
illegal. Most people would agree that lying is unethical
but lying is only illegal under certain conditions, e.g.
lying on an income tax return, lying when giving sworn
testimony, etc.
 Third, laws can be unethical or immoral. The United
States had laws permitting slavery in the 1800s but most
people today would say that those laws were unethical or
immoral.
 Fourth, laws are explicit while ethics are implicit
 We use different kinds of mechanisms to express, teach,
inculcate, and enforce laws and ethics.
 Laws are expressed publicly in statutes, penal codes,
court rulings, government regulations, and so forth,
however many ethical and moral standards are implicit.
 Although ethics and morals are sometimes made
explicit in religious texts, professional codes of
conduct, or philosophical writings, many ethical
and moral standards are implicit.
 Finally, we use the coercive power of
government to enforce laws. People who break
certain laws can be fined, imprisoned, or executed.
 People who violate ethical or moral standards do
not face these kinds of punishments unless their
actions also violate laws.
 Often we “punish” people who disobey moral or
ethical obligations by simply expressing our
disapproval or by condemning the behavior.
 Goal of Moral and Civic Education
1) The need to introduce citizens about their
rights and duties:
 Rights and Duties co-exist with each other (they are
termed as the two sides of the same coin) that regulate
the values and behavioral patterns of an individual.
 For instance, the State has the obligation to provide
health care services because citizens have the right to
access that service.
 However, unless citizens themselves act responsibly the
State will be unable to ensure that citizens led a healthy
life.
2. The Need for Participant Political Culture:
Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs,
and sentiments which give order and meaning to
a political process and which provide the
underlying assumptions and rules that govern
behavior in the political system.
Taylor (1999) describes political culture as the
norms of conduct both of and between the
various political actors operating in society,
together with the concomitant expectations and
understandings of the rights and responsibilities
of citizens, representatives, public servants and so
on.
 Political culture shapes
 what people expect of their political system,
what they see as possibilities for their own
action, and
 what rights and responsibilities the various
actors are perceived to have.
 Generally, political culture defines the roles
which an individual may play in the political
process.
 Almond and Verba (1963) construct three
political cultures: parochial cultures, subject
cultures, and participant cultures
 In parochial cultures citizens have low
cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientation
regarding
 The political systems,
 Government powers and functions and
 Even their privileges and duties.
 In such political culture,
 The role of citizens in the political sphere of
their countries is insignificant
 Individuals thinks of their families advantage
as the only goal to pursue.
 In subject cultures, citizens have high
cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientation
towards the political system and policy outputs,
but orientations towards input objects (like
political parties) and the self as active participants
are minimal.
 Thus, orientation towards the system and its
outputs is channeled via a relatively detached,
passive relationship on the part of the citizen.
 Subject cultures are most compatible with
centralized, authoritarian political structures.
 In participant cultures, members of society have
high cognitive, affective, and evaluative
orientation to the political system, the input
objects, the policy outputs, and recognize the self
as an active participant in the polity.
 Largely, participant cultures are most compatible
with democratic political structures because:-
 the qualities and attitudes of citizens
determine the health and stability of a
country’s democracy.
3) The Need for Relevant Knowledge, Skills and
Positive Attitudes:
 Relevant knowledge is a type of knowledge which
is useful in dealing with a particular problem at a
period of time.
 However, knowledge would remain passive unless
it is functional or put into practice to achieve a
certain goal.
 Still knowledge would remain infirm/sick if the
person is not equipped with right attitudes and
requisite skills which are basic to enable him/her
perform his/her role as a credible member of a
society
4) The issue of fostering intercultural societies:
 The recognition of cultural diversity is certainly
meritorious /commendable ,
 But civics and ethical education is
 a step forward by appealing to the notion of
interculturalism, which explicitly asserts the need for
relationship, dialogue, reciprocity and interdependence.
 a useful instrument not only towards tolerating or
celebrating each other, but also about nurturing dynamic
exchanges based on interaction, openness and effective
solidarity.
 nurture new and inclusive relations and practices in
both public and private spaces that recognize gender
differences while ensuring inclusiveness and equity.
5) The issue of peace-building:
 Citizenship education helps to advance pedagogical
strategies to promote cooperation, dialogue, and a
sustainable peace that is based on justice.
 This includes the development of competencies for
peacemaking, conflict resolution, healing, reconciliation
and reconstruction.
 The aim of moral/ethical and civic education is to
provide people to make decisions by their free wills. It
seeks to promote in students core moral, ethical,
democratic, and educational values, such as: respect for life,
reasoning, fairness and concern for the welfare of others
 Generally, teaching civics and ethics helps to produce
competent, high moral standard society and responsible
citizens.
 CHAPTER TWO
Approaches to Ethics

• Basically there are two Approaches of Ethics. These

are Normative and Non-Normative Ethics
• Normative ethics includes
– Teleological Ethics (Consequentialist)
– Deontological Ethics (Non- Consequentialist)
– Virtue Ethics and Civic Virtues
 Non-Normative Ethics includes
– Meta Ethics
– Absolutism/Objectivism
– Relativism/Subjectivism and Conventionalism
– Naturalism and Non-naturalism
2.1. Normative ethics
 It is a theory of obligation which guide us in the
making of decisions and judgments about actions in
particular situations.
 It offers theories that evaluate actions, outcomes, duties
or motivation as a means of justifying human conduct.
 Utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, principlism,
narrative ethics and feminist ethics are some of the theories
 Some of the questions in Normative ethics are:-
 Are there general principles or rules that we could
follow which distinguish between right and wrong?
 Are there virtues and/or relationships that we can
nurture, in order to behave well?
 2.1.1. Teleological Ethics (Consequentialist)
 It is referred as “the end justifies the means”. It believes
in purpose, ends or goals of an action, it stress that the
consequences of an action determines the morality or
immorality of a given action.
 Which means an action is judged as right or wrong, moral
or immoral depending on what happens because of it.
 One may have the best intention or follow the highest
moral principles but if the result, moral act is harmful, or
bad it must be judged as morally or ethically wrong act.
 Thus, an act is right if and only if it or the rule under
which it falls produces, will probably produce, or is
intended to produce at least as great a balance of good
over evil as any available alternative; an act is wrong if
and only if it does not do so.
Ethical Egoism, psychological Egoism and Altruism
 Egoism- refers overly concerned with oneself or seek to
maximize our own self-interest
 Ethical egoism is a theory that advocates egoism as a
moral rule. The theory implies that we ought to be
selfish or self-interested.
 Psychological Egoism dictates "self-love" as the only
basic "principle" i.e. "ego-satisfaction" or "the pleasure
principle" is the basic "drive" in every individual activity.
 Thus, ethical egoism has generally presupposed what is
called psychological egoism.
 Altruism-acts involve putting other people’s interests
ahead of our own
Utilitarianism
 It is a universal teleological system it calls for the
maximization of goodness in society—that is, the
greatest goodness for the greatest number—and not
merely the good of the agent.
 It is the opposite of ethical egoism because Ethical
egoism is narrowed to the agent//individual himself or
herself.
Classical utilitarianism
 For Epicurus (342–270 BCE), who stated that “pleasure
is the goal that nature has ordained for us; it is also the
standard by which we judge everything good.”
 According to this view, rightness and wrongness are
determined by pleasure or pain that something
produces.
 Jeremy Bentham Quantity over Quality
 According to Jeremy Bentham there are two main
features of utilitarianism,
 The consequentialist principle (teleological
aspect): states that the rightness or wrongness
of an act is determined by the goodness or
badness of the results that follow from it i.e.
the end justifies the means.
 The utility principle (hedonic aspect): states
that the only thing that is good in itself is some
specific type of state (for example, pleasure,
happiness, welfare).
 According to utility principle(Hedonistic
utilitarianism) an act is right if it either brings
about more pleasure than pain or prevents pain,
and an act is wrong if it either brings about more
pain than pleasure or prevents pleasure from
occurring.
 Bentham invented a scheme for measuring
pleasure and pain that he called the hedonic
calculus:
 The quantitative score for any pleasure or pain
experience is obtained by summing the seven
aspects of a pleasurable or painful experience: its
intensity, duration, certainty, nearness,
fruitfulness, purity, and extent.
 According to Bentham’s utilitarianism there is
only one principle to apply: Maximize pleasure
and minimize suffering or pain.
 It is commonsensical/rational in that we think that
morality really is about reducing suffering and
promoting benevolence/kindness.
 It is scientific simply to make quantitative
measurements and apply the principle impartially,
giving no special treatment to ourselves or to
anyone else because of race, gender, personal
relationship, or religion.
John Stuart Mill: Quality over Quantity
 His version of the theory is often called eudaimonistic
utilitarianism (from the Greek eudaimonia, meaning
“happiness”).
 He defines happiness in terms of certain types of higher-order
pleasures or satisfactions such as intellectual, aesthetic, and
social enjoyments, as well as in terms of minimal suffering.
 For Mill, there are two types of pleasures. The lower, or
elementary, include eating, drinking, sexuality, resting, and
sensuous titillation.
 The higher include high culture, scientific knowledge,
intellectuality, and creativity. Although the lower pleasures are
more intensely gratifying, they also lead to pain when
overindulged in.
 The higher pleasures tend to be more long term, continuous,
and gradual.
 Mill argued that the higher pleasures are superior
to the lower ones: “It is better to be a human being
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
 But what does it mean to speak of better pleasure?
The formula he comes up with is this: Happiness
… [is] not a life of rapture/joy;
 Mill is clearly pushing the boundaries of the
concept of “pleasure” by emphasizing higher
qualities such as knowledge, intelligence, freedom,
friendship, love, and health.
 In fact, one might even say that his litmus test for
happiness really has little to do with actual pleasure
 Act and Rule Utilitarianism
 Act-utilitarianism argues that an act is right if and only if it
results in as much good as any available alternative.
 Act-utilitarians, such as Bentham, say that ideally we ought
to apply the principle to all of the alternatives open to us at
any given moment.
 One practical problem with act-utilitarianism is that we
cannot do the necessary calculations to determine which act
is the correct one in each case, for often we must act
spontaneously and quickly.
 So rules of thumb are of practical importance—for example,
“In general, don’t lie,” and “Generally, keep your promises.”
 A second problem with act-utilitarianism is that it seems to
fly in the face of fundamental intuitions about minimally
correct behavior.
 Rule-utilitarianism: argues that an act is right if and
only if it is required by a rule that is itself a member of a
set of rules whose acceptance would lead to greater
utility for society than any available alternative.
The Strengths of Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism has three very positive features. These are
 It is an absolute system with a potential answer for
every situation: “Do what will promote the most
utility!”
 It is not merely a formal system that simply sets forth
broad guidelines for choosing principles but offers no
principles—such as the guideline “Do whatever you can
universalize.” It seems to get to the substance of
morality.
 A third strength of utilitarianism is that it is
particularly well suited to address the problem of
posterity—namely, why we should preserve scarce
natural resources for the betterment of future
generations of humans that do not yet exist. Expressed
rhetorically, the question is “Why should I care about
posterity; what has posterity ever done for me?”
Criticism of Utilitarianism
 Problems with Formulating Utilitarianism
 The first set of problems occurs in the very
formulation of utilitarianism: “The greatest happiness
for the greatest number.”
 Whenever we have two variables, we invite problems
of determining which of the variables to rank first
when they seem to conflict.
 The Comparative Consequences Objection
 It seems to require a superhuman ability to look into
the future and survey a mind-boggling array of
consequences of actions.
 we normally do not know the long-term
consequences of our actions because life is too
complex and the consequences go on into the
indefinite future.
 The Consistency Objection to Rule-Utilitarianism
 Utilitarianism is an inconsistent theory that offers no
truly independent standard for making moral
judgments. E.g. when rule-utilitarianism is pushed to its
logical limits, it must either become a deontological
system or transform itself into act-utilitarianism.
 The No-Rest Objection
 According to utilitarianism, one should always do that
act that promises to promote the most utility. But there
is usually an infinite set of possible acts to choose
from,
 For example,
 when I am about to go to the cinema with a friend,
I should ask myself if helping the homeless in my
community wouldn’t promote more utility.
 When I am about to go to sleep, I should ask
myself whether I could at that moment be doing
something to help save the ozone layer.
 The Publicity Objection
o It is usually thought that moral principles must be
known to all so that all may freely obey the
principles.
o But utilitarian's usually hesitate to recommend
that everyone act as a utilitarian, especially an
act-utilitarian, because it takes a great deal of
deliberation to work out the likely consequences
of alternative courses of action.
o It would be better if most people acted simply as
deontologists. Thus, utilitarianism seems to
contradict our requirement of publicity
 The Relativism Objection
 Sometimes people accuse rule-utilitarianism of
being relativistic because it seems to endorse
different rules in different societies.
 In one society, it may uphold polygamy, whereas
in our society it defends monogamy.
 In a desert society, it upholds a rule “Don’t waste
water,” whereas in a community where water is
plentiful no such rule exists. But this is not really
conventional relativism because the rule is not
made valid by the community’s choosing it but by
the actual situation.
 The Lying Objection
 William D. Ross has argued that utilitarianism is
to be rejected because it leads to the counter
intuitive endorsement of lying when it serves
the greater good.
 Consider two acts, A and B, that will both result
in 100 hedons (units of pleasure of utility).
 The only difference is that A involves telling a lie
and B involves telling the truth.
 The utilitarian must maintain that the two acts are
of equal value. But this seems implausible; truth
seems to be an intrinsically good thing.
 Criticism of the Ends Justifying Immoral Means
 Chief among the criticisms of utilitarianism is that
utilitarian ends might justify immoral means.
 There are many dastardly things that we can do in the
name of maximizing general happiness: deceit, torture,
slavery, even killing off ethnic minorities.
 As long as the larger populace benefits, these actions
might be justified. The general problem can be laid out in
this argument:
 If a moral theory justifies actions that we universally
deem impermissible, then that moral theory must be
rejected.
 Utilitarianism justifies actions that we universally deem
impermissible. Therefore, utilitarianism must be rejected.
 Generally, utilitarianism is a moral theory which
takes into account how the consequences of an
act will affect all the parties involved. Moral
rightness depends on the consequences for all
affected people or sentient beings.
 The fundamental principle of utilitarianism is
the principle of utility:
The principle of utility
 The morally right action is the one that
produces the best overall consequences with
regard to the utility or welfare of all the affected
parties.
 Jeremy Bentham’s slogan: The right act or policy is the
one that causes ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest
number’ – that is, maximize the total utility or welfare of
the majority of all the affected parties.
Altruism
 In altruism an action is right if the consequences of
that action are favorable to all except the actor.
Butler argued that we have an inherent psychological
capacity to show benevolence to others.
 This view is called psychological altruism and
maintains that at least some of our actions are
motivated by instinctive benevolence.
 We can differentiate egoistic and altruistic
desires in the following way:
 One’s desire is egoistic if (and only if) it concerns
(what one perceives to be) the benefit of oneself and
not anyone else.
 In the contrary, one’s desire is altruistic if (and only
if) it concerns (what one perceives to be) the benefit
of at least someone other than oneself.
 Altruists reject the theory of psychological
egoism and argue instead that humans are
instinctively benevolent or kind.
 2.1.2. Deontological Ethics
 Immanuel Kant is identified with the moral theory known as
deontology.
 For this theory it is not the end result of action that determines its
rightness rather the means and the motive of the action are
important
 It is referred as “the means justifies the end”. It is coined as
“deontics”.
 This is a theory that the rightness or wrongness of moral action
is determined, at least partly with reference to formal rules of
conduct rather than consequences or result of an action.
 It is an emphasis on the intentions, motives, moral principles
or performance of duty rather than results, as the sign of right
action/morality and immorality.
 It is a duty based ethics and according to this theory, the
consequences or results of our action have nothing to do
with their rightness or wrongness.
 According to Samuel Pufendorf, duties can be
classified in to three headings: duties to God, duties to
oneself and duties to others!
Concerning our duties towards God, he argued that there
are two kinds:
1. A theoretical duty to know the existence and nature of
God, and
2. A practical duty to both inwardly and outwardly worship
God.
Concerning our duties towards oneself; these are two sorts:
1. duties of the soul, which involve developing one's skills and
talents
2. duties of the body, which involve not harming our bodies, e.g. not
killing oneself.
 Concerning our duties towards others; Pufendorf divides these
between absolute duties, which are universally binding on people,
and conditional duties, which are the result of contracts between
people
 Absolute duties are of three sorts:
1. Avoid wronging others;
2. Treat people as equals, and
3. Promote the good of others.
 Conditional duties involve various types of agreements, the
principal one of which is the duty is to keep one's promises.
 Duty-based Approach Theories to Ethics
1. The Divine Command Theory
 They are ethical principles which are simply the
commands of God.
 They derive their validity from God and without God
there would be no universally valid morality.
 We can analyze the DCT into three separate theses:
I. Morality (that is, rightness and wrongness) originates
with God.
II. Moral rightness simply means “willed by God,” and
moral wrongness means “being against the will of God.”
III.Morality is based on divine will, not on
independently existing reasons for action, no further
reasons for action are necessary.
This theory, may have four propositions:
I. Act A is wrong if and only if it is contrary to the
command of God.
II. Act A is right (required) if and only if it is commanded
by God.
III. Act A is morally permissible if and only if it is permitted
by the command of God.
IV. If there is no God, then nothing is ethically wrong,
required, or permitted.
 We can summarize the DCT this way:
 Moral rightness - An act is right in virtue of being
permitted by the will of God, and
 Moral wrongness - An act is wrong in virtue of being
against the will of God.
 Rights Theory

2. Rights Theory
 A second duty-based approach to ethics is rights theory. such as
my right to not be harmed by you.
 Rights and duties are related in such a way that the rights of
one person imply the duties of another person.
 John Locke, who argued that the laws of nature mandate that
we should not harm anyone's life, health, liberty or
possessions.
 For Locke, these are our natural rights, given to us by God.
Following Locke, the United States Declaration of
Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson recognizes three
foundational rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
 Jefferson and others rights theorists maintained that we deduce
other more specific rights from these, including the rights of
property, movement, speech, and religious expression.
There are four features traditionally associated with
moral rights.
 First, rights are natural insofar as they are not
invented or created by governments.
 Second, they are universal insofar as they do not
change from country to country.
 Third, they are equal in the sense that rights are
the same for all people, irrespective of gender,
race, or handicap.
 Fourth, they are inalienable which means that I
cannot hand over my rights to another person,
such as by selling myself into slavery
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
• Kant emphasized on the correctness of the action,
regardless of the possible benefits or harm it might
produce.
• For him there are moral obligations which are
absolutely binding, no matter what consequences
are produced.
• A Kant’s duty-based theory(The Categorical
Imperative) is emphasizes a single principle of
duty.
 He agreed that we have moral duties to oneself
and others, such as developing one’s talents, and
keeping our promises to others. i.e. idea of good
intension
 Kant believed that nothing was good in itself except
a “good will.” that is the uniquely human capacity
to act according to the concepts behind laws.
 For Kant a will could be good without
qualification : whether the maxim of its action
could become a universal law.
 Kant’s categorical imperative states that we should
act in such a way that the maxim or general rule
governing our action could be a universal law.
 Kant’s version relies heavily on his idea that all
people are fundamentally capable of reasoning in
the same manner and on the same level.
 Kant gives versions or formulations of the
categorical imperative.
 Hypothetical imperatives tell us which means best
achieve our ends.
 They do not, however, tell us which ends we
should choose. The typical dichotomy in
choosing ends is between ends that are "right"
(e.g., helping someone) and those that are
"good" (e.g., enriching oneself).
 Pure practical reason in the process of determining it
dictates what ought to be done without reference to
empirical contingent factors.
 Moral questions are determined independent of reference
to the particular subject posing them.
 It is because morality is determined by pure practical
reason rather than particular empirical or sensuous factors
that morality is universally valid. This is called Moral
Universalism which has wide social impact in the legal and
political concepts of human rights and equality.
 Kant's theory is hinged by his beliefs on autonomy and his
formulation of categorical imperatives. He believed that,
unless individuals freely and willingly make a choice,
their action has no meaning (and certainly no moral value).
 Autonomy is one’s own beliefs, independence, and
government: acting without regard for anyone else.
 Autonomy allows us to be self-creating when it comes to
our values and morality.
 Conversely, Heteronomy is acting under the influence of someone
else and allows for an individual to consistently place blame outside of
self.
 Kant believed that each individual is rational
and capable of making free choices; thereby
relies on autonomous thinking.
 Kant concludes that a moral proposition that is
true must be one that is not tied to any
particular conditions, including the identity of
the person making the moral deliberation.
 A moral maxim must imply absolute necessity,
which is to say that it must be disconnected from
the particular physical details surrounding the
proposition, and could be applied to any rational
being. This leads to the first formulation of the
categorical imperative:
 THE THREE MORAL MAXIMS
A. The Principle of Universality
 The first maxim states that we should choose our 'codes
of conduct' only if they serve perfect / imperfect duty
and are good for all. "Act only according to that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law without contradiction."
 Kant divides the duties imposed by this formulation into
two subsets: perfect and imperfect duty.
 Perfect duties are blameworthy if not met and are the
basic requirements for a human being. According to his
reasoning, we first have a perfect duty not to act by
maxims that result in logical contradictions when we
attempt to universalize them.
 Imperfect duties are those that do not achieve blame, rather
they receive praise if completed; they are circumstantial duties
such as cultivating talent. They are still based on pure reason, but
which allow for desires in how they are carried out in practice.
B. The Principle of Humanity as an End, Never as Merely a
Means
 The second maxim states that we should not use humanity of
ourselves or others as a means to an end. “Act in such a way
that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the
person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but
always at the same time as an end.”
C. The Principle of Autonomy
 The third maxim states that we should consider ourselves to be
members in the universal realm of ends. Therefore, every
rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim
always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.
Ross’s Prima Facie Duties or Moral Guidelines
 The term prima facie means “at a first sight” or “on the
surface.” By prima facie duties, Ross means duties that
dictate what we should do when other moral factors are not
considered.
 Prima facie duties are duties that generally obligate us; that is,
they ordinarily impose a moral obligation but may not in a
particular case because of circumstances.
 An actual duty is the action that one ought to perform after
considering and weighing all the prima facie duties involved.
 For David Ross here are several prima facie duties that we
can use to determine what, concretely, we ought to do.
 A prima facie duty explain that Unless stronger moral
considerations override, one ought to keep a promise made.
 With prima facie duties, our actual or concrete
duty is the duty we should perform in the
particular situation of choice.
 The prima facie duties are understood as
guidelines, not rules without exception.
 Ross’s list the following categories of prima facie
duties is much shorter, which he believes reflects
our actual moral convictions:
 Duties of Fidelity: the duty to keep promises and the
obligation not to lie and not to engage in deception.
 Duties of Reparation:- It is the duty to compensate
others when we harm them. Ross describes this duty as
"resting on a previous wrongful act’’.
 Duties of Gratitude:- the duty to thank those who help
us.
 Duties of Justice:- It is distributing benefits and burdens
fairly. It includes the duty to prevent an unjust distribution of
benefits or burdens.
 Duties of Beneficence:- the duty to improve the
conditions of others. The duty to do good to others: to
foster their health, security, wisdom, moral goodness, or
happiness.
 Duties of Self-improvement:- it is to act so as to promote
one’s own good, i.e., one’s own health, security, wisdom,
moral goodness, virtue, intelligence and happiness.
 Duties of Non-maleficence:-it is the duty not to harm
others physically, emotionally or psychologically: to avoid
harming their health, security, intelligence, character, or
 2.1.3. Virtue Ethics
 Virtue Ethics is Challenging the adequacy of rule-
based theories
 Virtue ethics is a technical term used to distinguish a
normative ethical theory focused on the virtues, or
moral character, from others such as deontology (or
contractarianism) and consequentialism.
Aristotle’s Ethics
 Aristotle, first wrote a detailed discussion of virtue
morality in the Nichomachean Ethics. He understood
‘Virtues’ as strength of character.
 But, many years after Aristotle’s death, virtue theory
came to be over-shadowed by the development of
utilitarianism and deontology.
 Key questions which virtue ethical systems ask
include:
 What sort of person do I want to be?
 What virtues are characteristic of the person I want to
be?
 What actions will cultivate the virtues I want to
possess?
 What actions will be characteristic of the sort of person
I want to be?
The Good Character
 People have a natural capacity for good character, and it is
developed through practice.
 The capacity does not come first, it developed through practice
 Virtue, arete, or excellence is defined as a mean between two
extremes of excess and defect in regard to a feeling or action as
the practically wise person would determine it. The mean
cannot be calculated a priori.
 The level of courage necessary is different for a philosophy
teacher, a commando, and a systems programmer
 Phronesis or practical wisdom is the ability to see the right thing
to do in the circumstances.
 Pleasure is the natural accompaniment of unimpeded activity.
Pleasure is neither good nor bad.
 Friendship: a person's relationship to a friend is the same as the
relation to oneself. The friend can be thought of as a second
 The kinds of friendship:
• Utility
• Pleasure
• The Good--endures as long as both retain their
character.
 The Contemplative Faculty--the exercise of
perfect happiness in intellectual or philosophic
activity.
 Reason is the highest faculty of human beings.
We can engage in it longer than other activities.
 Philosophy is loved as an end-in-itself, and
so eudaemonia implies leisure and self-
sufficiency as an environment for contemplation.
2.2. Non-Normative Ethics /
2.2.1. Meta-ethics
 Meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and
meaning of moral judgment
 Meta-ethics tries to answer question, such as:
 What does “good,” “right,” or “justice” mean?
 What makes something good or right?
 Is moral realism true?
 Is morality irreducible, cognitive, or overriding?
 Do intrinsic values exist?
 It is important to be clear that in normative ethics we do
not just look for an answer to the question, but we also
look for some insight into why the right answer is
right. Examples of such theories include: act-
 Act-utilitarianism-act because that particular
action contributes to the greater happiness of the
greatest number;
 Rule-utilitarianism act because it is prescribed
by a rule the general observance of which
contributes most to the greater happiness of the
greatest number); and
 Kantianism act because universal refusal to act
to would generate some kind of inconsistency.
 Normative ethics thus seeks to discover the
general principles underlying moral
practice(practical moral problems)
- However, Meta-ethics concerns-in metaphysics, epistemology,
phenomenology and moral psychology, as well as in semantics
and the theory of meaning.
*Meaning: what is the semantic function of moral discourse? Is the
function of moral discourse to state facts, or does it have some other
non-fact-stating role?
*Metaphysics: do moral facts (or properties) exist? If so, what are they
like? Are they identical or reducible to some other type of fact (or
property) or are they irreducible and sui generis?
*Epistemology and justification: is there such a thing as moral
knowledge? How can we know whether our moral judgments are
true or false? How can we ever justify our claims to moral knowledge?
*Phenomenology: how are moral qualities represented in the
experience of an agent making a moral judgment? Do they appear to be
'out there' in the world?
*Moral psychology: what can we say about the
motivational state of someone making a moral
judgment? What sort of connection is there
between making a moral judgment and being
motivated to act as that judgment prescribes?
*Objectivity: can moral judgments really be correct
or incorrect? Can we work towards finding out
the moral truth?
 Meta ethics is not about what people ought to do.
It is about what they are doing when they talk
about what they ought to do.
 Positions in meta-ethics can be defined in terms of the
answers they give to these sorts of question.
 Some examples of meta-ethical theories are moral
realism, non-cognitivism, error-theory and moral
anti-realism.
 Cognitivists think that moral judgments are capable of
being true or false.
 On the other hand, non-cognitivists think that moral
judgments express non-cognitive states such as
emotions or desires.
 Desires and emotions are not truth-apt. So moral
judgments are not capable of being true or false .
 Strong Cognitivism(Naturalism)
 A strong cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral
judgments
 are appropriate for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity,
 can be the upshot of cognitively accessing the facts which render
them true.
 Strong cognitivist theories can be either naturalist or non-
naturalist.
 According to a naturalist, a moral judgments is rendered true
or false by a natural state of affairs, and it is this natural state
of affairs to which a true moral judgments affords us access.
Strong Cognitivism: (Non-Naturalism)
 Non-naturalists think that moral properties are not
identical to or reducible to natural properties. They are
irreducible and sui generis.
 Non-Cognitivism
 Non-cognitivists deny that moral judgments are even
appropriate to be true or false.
 Non-cognitivists thus disagree with both weak and
strong cognitivism. We shall look at a number of
arguments which the non-cognitivist uses against
cognitivism.
 An example of such an argument is the argument from
moral psychology.
 Suppose that moral judgments can express beliefs, as
the cognitivist claims. Being motivated to do
something or to pursue a course of action is always a
matter of having a belief and a desire.
We shall look at three versions of non-cognitivism
which give different answers to this question:
J. Ayer's emotivism (1936), according to which
moral judgements express emotions, or sentiments
of approval or disapproval;
Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism (1984), according
to which moral judgements express our dispositions
to form sentiments of approval or disapproval; and
Allan Gibbard's norm-expressivism (1990),
according to which our moral judgements express
our acceptance of norms.
Internalism and Externalism, Humeanism and Anti-
Humeanism
o The claim that there is an internal and necessary
connection between sincerely making a moral
judgement and being motivated to act in the manner
prescribed by that judgement.
o This claim is known as internalism, because it says that
there is an internal or conceptual connection between
moral judgement and motivation.
o Some cognitivist philosophers respond to the argument
from moral psychology by denying internalism.
o They claim that the connection between judgement and
motivation is only external and contingent.
 Such philosophers are known as externalists.
Other cognitivist philosophers respond to the
argument from moral psychology by denying
another premise of the argument, the claim that
motivation always involves the presence of both
beliefs and desires (this premise is known as the
Humean theory of motivation, since it received
a classic exposition by Hume).
 McDowell and Wiggins advance an anti-
Humean theory of motivation, according to
which beliefs themselves can be intrinsically
motivating.
Generally, Meta-ethics:
 Examines the meaning of moral terms and concepts and the
relationships between these concepts.
 Explores where moral values, such as ‘personhood’ and
‘autonomy’, come from.
 Considers the difference between moral values and other
kinds of values.
 Examines the way in which moral claims are justified.
Meta-ethics also poses questions of the following kind:
 What do we mean by the claim, ‘life is sacred’?
 Are moral claims a matter of personal view, religious belief
or social standard, or, are they objective in some sense?
 If they are objective, what make them so?
 Is there a link between human psychology and the moral
claims that humans make?
CHAPTER THREE

Ethical Decision Making and

Moral Judgments
 3.1. How Can We Make Ethical Decisions
And Actions?
• Ethical decision is a type of decision that consider
trustiness’, responsibility, fairness and action not harm
individual as well as group member of society.
• The values of ethical decisions are determined by
goodness (rightness of the action). In a real life
conditions we may get difficulties always to do the
right thing.
• The ethical nature of our action and decision, is very
much dependent upon our notion of ``Good‘ and
``Bad, `` Right and`` wrong``: So, the question is
What things are good or bad?
There are two kinds of good.
• Instrumental good
• the goodness of things lies in their being
instruments towards the attainment of the
other things which are considered good not
simply as instruments or relative.
• Intrinsic good
• we value things (whatever they may turn out to
be) not for what they lead to but for what
they are or essential (natural good).
 Cont.
• There are things which are instrumentally bad and
intrinsically bad. Some things(action) can fulfill
both qualities.
– E.g In our country things such as Female Genital
Mutilation, early marriage, kidnapping, abduction,
Ignorance, poverty, corruption, murder are some of the
things which are considered to be unethical or bad or
evil practices which are to be eradicated.
• Generally key tasks of ethical reasoning are:-
– To analyze and consider critically the values of the
action.
– To evaluate the adequacy of reasons that we give for
our actions: e. g based on sound evidence and/or logical
argument.
 Cont.
 evaluating ethical values and arguments are
unlike many other kinds of human tasks because ,
Ethical values are not easy to understand as
other kinds of values.
 Ethical problems are not as clear as other
kinds of problems and resolving ethical
problems as definitively is not always
possible.
 Good ethical thinking acknowledge the
diversity and complexity of roles, situations and
circumstances that arise in human life and
relationships.
 Ethical Principles and Values of Moral
Judgments
• In Moral Judgments sometimes the vicissitudes
and complexities of actions may challenges our
decisions.
– E.g Consider the idea that it is wrong to kill.
Does it mean capital punishment is
wrong?
Is it wrong to kill animals? Is killing in
self-defence wrong?
Is the termination of pregnancy wrong?
• To examine these questions we need to see
questions in more detail; theoretical frameworks
helps to us, to analyze complex problems and we
find rational coherent solutions to those problems.
• Besides, there are three identified underlying
principles or rules to reach your decision.
– I should do the best thing for my career in the
long run.
– It is OK to tell someone a lie if it prevents
someone from being hurt by the truth.‘
– I should always help someone in difficulty.
 Rationalization
• Studying ethics involves valid reasons and
deeper understanding for the moral arguments
that we make.
• Types of reasoning:- There are three forms of
critical reasoning
1. Reasoning by analogy:- It is a comparison b/n
things to explain similarity & different or the
purpose of explanation or clarification.. E.g
animals are like and unlike humans, as humans
are also animals.
 cont
2. Deductive reasoning:- applies a principle to a
situation. It is the part of reasoning from the general
to specific way. For instance, if every person has
human rights, and you are a person, then you have
human rights like every person.
3. Inductive reasoning:- involves providing
evidence to support a hypothesis. The greater the
evidence for a hypothesis, the more we may rely on
it.‘ It is also the part of reasoning specific to general.
E.g. burning of fossil fuels is having a detrimental
effect on global climate. So, substantiate of this
argument is we have a moral duty to reduce carbon
emissions.
 Ethics and Religious Faith
There is another important argument that people use when
making ethical arguments religious faith. For many
people, ‘morality and religious faith go hand in hand‘. As
religious people of view the right or wrong terms are
commanded by a God. But, Some moral philosophers do not
view arguments based on religious faith as being rationally
defensible. However, faith-based arguments are relevant to
moral philosophy for several reasons.
Additionally, many people in the world do look to religion
for moral guidance, and we should not underestimate the
ability of the moral teachings of a religious tradition to
persuade the public to embrace a higher moral standard‘.
 Testing moral arguments
There are three main ways of testing a moral arguments:-
A- Factual accuracy:- This way of testing moral arguments
was developed in 18thc by philosopher David Hume (1711
—1776).
Factual accuracy is simple collecting a lot of true
information before making our moral decisions based
accurate facts.
For example:- someone who maintains that giving aid to
charities working in Africa is wrong. Because, they believes
that 90% of the money donated in fact goes to paying
wealthy consultants and NGO workers, and only 10% goes
to alleviate poverty.
 Cont.
• If this person were shown that this was
factually incorrect, and that in fact 90% of all
donations were used to alleviate poverty, then
their moral argument would lose its force.
B- Consistency: - Arguments need to be
consistent or coherence of or logical reasonable
harmony between parts’’. For instance, one can
only argue that it is morally wrong to kill one
person and yet morally acceptable to kill
another, if one can demonstrate that there is a
morally relevant difference between the two
C. Thinking Ethically: A framework for Moral Decision Making
Deciding an ethical issue can be equally difficult for
conservatives and liberals. To guide our reflection
on such difficult questions, philosophers, religious
teachers and other thinkers have shaped various
approaches to ethical decision-making. There are
five different types of approaches to values to deal
with moral issues are:
Fairness or Justice,
 The common Good,
 the Utilitarian
the Rights, and the Virtues.
 1. Fairness and Justice Approach
The fairness or justice approach of ethics was the teachings of
the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who said that
‘’equals should be treated equally and unequal‘s
unequally’’. But, basic moral question in this approach is:
• How fair is an action?
• Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it how we
can prevent favoritism and discrimination?
• In generally, under this approach Aristotle Believes that:-
 Both favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.
 ethical knowledge is not precise knowledge, like logic and
mathematics, but general like knowledge of nutrition and
exercise.
 Finally, Aristotle believes by this approach focuses

on how fairly or unfairly our actions distribute

benefits and burdens among the members of a

group.

 The principle states Treat people the same unless

there are morally relevant differences between

them.
 2. Utilitarian Approach:

 This approach emphasize the action

greatest goods and least harms, to
balance of most goods over harm.
 According to this approach all customers,
employees, shareholders, the community
and the environment judged depends on
greatest goods and least harm.
 Specially policy makers should be follow
this approach because all persons to be
directly or indirectly affected by the action
or policy.
 3. The Common Good Approach
 What is ethical decision for this approach?
Answer ‘’advances the common good’’.
This approach also calls attention to the
common conditions that are important to the
welfare of everyone.
 This may be a system of laws, effective
police and departments of health care, a
public educational system, or even public
recreation areas.
 4. The Rights Approach:
• This approach was rooted in 18th c by Immanuel Kant
who focused on the individual‘s right to choose for her or
himself.
• For Kant what makes human beings different from things?
that is peoples dignity, their ability, choose freely and
acquiring fundamental moral rights include:
– The Right to the Truth: We have a right to be told the truth and to
be informed about matters that significantly affect choices.
– The Right of Privacy: We have the right to do, believe, and
choose in our personal lives so long as we do not violate the
rights of others.
– The Right not to be injured: We have the right not to be
harmed
– The Right to what is agreed: We have the right to
promised freely entered into a contract or agreement.
 5. The Virtue Approach:
• As this approach ethical decisions or action
should strive for good attitudes or character
that showing high moral standards.
• These Virtues are attitudes or character traits
that enable us to be and to act in ways that
develop our highest potential. They enable
us to pursue the ideals we have adopted. Eg
Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity,
fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and
prudence are examples of virtues frequently
cited throughout the world.
 To Whom or What Does Morality Apply?

• There are four aspects of Morality considered to be applied

religious morality, morality and nature, individual morality,
and social morality.
1. Religious Morality:- Religious morality refers to a human
being in relationship to a supernatural being or beings.
In the Jewish and Christian traditions, for example, the first
three of the Ten Commandments (See the figure below)
pertain to this kind of morality. These commandments deal
with a person‘s relationship with God, not with any other
human beings. By violating any of these three
commandments, a person could, according to this particular
code of ethics, act immorally toward God without acting
immorally toward anyone else.
The Ten Commandments
1. I am the Lord, Your God; do not worship false gods!
2. Do not take the name of God in vain!
3. Keep holy the Sabbath Day!
4. Honor your father and your mother!
5. Do not kill!
6. Do not commit adultery!
7. Do not steal!
8. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor!
9. Do not covet your neighbor‘s spouse!
10. Do not covet your neighbor‘s belongings!
Source: (Exod. 20:1–17)
 Cont.
2.Morality and Nature:- refers to a human
being in relationship to nature. Naturally,
morality has been prevalent (widespread) in
all primitive cultures, such as that of the
Native American, and in cultures of the Far
East.
More recently, the Western tradition has
also become aware of the significance of
dealing with nature in a moral manner. E.g
make desert Greenland is moral or immoral
actions ?
3. Individual Morality:- refers to individuals
in relation to themselves and to an
individual code of morality that may or may
not be sanctioned by any society or religion.
4. Social Morality
Social morality concerns with human being
relation with other human beings. It is
probably the most important aspect of
morality, in that it cuts across all of the other
aspects and is found in more ethical systems
than any of the others.
 Chapter Four
State, Government and
Citizenship
 Defining State
 The term ‘state’ has been used to refer to a
bewildering range of things: a collection of
institutions, a territorial unit, a philosophical
idea, an instrument of coercion or
oppression, and so on.
 This confusion stems, in part, from the fact that
the state has been understood in four quite
different ways; from an idealist perspective, a
functionalist perspective, an organizational
perspective and an international perspective.
The Idealist approach
It is the idea of Hegel and he identified three moments of
social existence: the family, civil society and the state.
Hegel conceived state as an ethical community
underpinned by mutual sympathy – ‘universal
altruism’.
The drawback of idealism, however, is that it fosters an
uncritical reverence for the state and, by defining the
state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly between
institutions that are part of the state and those that are
outside the state.
Functionalist approaches
 It focus on the role or purpose of state institutions.
The central function of the state is invariably seen as the
maintenance of social order,
 It defined state as a set of institutions that uphold
order and deliver social stability. This approach has
been adopted by neo-Marxists.
 The weakness of the functionalist view of the state is
that it tends to associate any institution that
maintains order (such as the family, mass media, trade
unions and the church) with the state itself.
The organizational view
•It defines the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest
sense; that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’,
in that they are responsible for the collective organization of social
existence and are funded at the public’s expense.
•The virtue of this definition is that it distinguishes clearly between
the state and civil society. The state comprises the various
institutions of government: the bureaucracy, the military, the police,
the courts, and the social security system and so on; it can be
identified with the entire ‘body politic’.
•The organizational approach allows us to talk about ‘rolling forward’
or ‘rolling back’ the state, in the sense of expanding or contracting
the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or diminishing its
institutional machinery.
The International approach
•It views the state primarily as an actor on the world
stage; indeed, as the basic ‘unit’ of international
politics.
•Whereas the previous definitions are concerned with
the state’s inward-looking face, its relations with the
individuals and groups that live within its borders, and
its ability to maintain domestic order, the international
view deals with the state’s outward-looking face, its
relations with other states and, therefore, its ability to
provide protection against external attack.
The classic definition of the state in international law is
found in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and
Duties of the State (1933).
According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the
state has four essential attribute of the /features: a defined
territory, permanent population, an effective government
and sovereignty. Let us now discuss details of the above-
mentioned attributes as follows:
1. Population: Since state is a human association, the first
essential element that constitutes it is the people. How much
people constitute state? No exact number can be given to
such a question. The fact is that the states of the world vary
in terms of demographic strength.
There are states with a population of greater than 1 billion
like that of China and India, and with a constituency of few
thousand people like Vatican and San Marino.
It is good that population of a state is homogeneous,
because it makes the task of national integration easy.
Homogeneity is determined by any factor like commonness
of religion, or blood, or language or culture and the like.
But Homogeneity is not a must, because most of the states
have a population marked by diversity in respect of race,
religion, language, culture, etc.
In short, it is to be noted that without population there
can be no state, ‘it goes without saying that an uninhabited
portion of the earth, take in itself, cannot form a state.
2. Defined Territory
•There can be no state without a territory of its own. The
territory of a state includes land, water, and airspace; it has
maritime jurisdiction extending up to a distance of three
miles, though some states contend for a distance of up to 20
miles.
•The territorial authority of a state also extends to ships on
high seas under its flag as well as its embassies and
legations/diplomat’s residence in foreign lands.
•The size of a state’s territory cannot be fixed. There are
as large states as China and Russia and as small states of Fiji
and Mauritius in respect of their territorial make-up.
It also possible that states may be in the form of
islands as Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan.
It is, however, certain that the boundary lines of
a state must be well marked out. This can be
done either by
 the geographical make up in the form of division by
the seas, rivers, mountains, thick forests, deserts, etc.,
or
 it may be done by creating artificial divisions in the
form of digging trenches or fixing pointed wire
fencing.
3. Government
Government is said to be the soul of the state. It
implements the will of the community. It protects the
people against conditions of insecurity.
If state is regarded as the first condition of a civilized life,
it is due to the existence of a government that maintain law
and order and makes ‘good life’ possible.
The government is the machinery that terminates the
condition of anarchy.
The form of government may be monarchical, aristocratic,
oligarchic, democratic, or dictatorial and
If there is no government, there is anarchy and the state is
at an end.
4. Sovereignty
 It is the highest power of the state that distinguishes it
from all other associations of human beings.
 It is the principle of absolute and unlimited power.
 It has two aspects - Internal and External.
Internal Sovereignty implies that inside the state there
can be no other authority that may claim equality with
it. The state is the final source of all laws internally.
 External sovereignty implies that the state should be
free from foreign control of any kind.
• Conceptually, the existence of sovereign
authority appears in the form of law.
• It is for this reason that the law of the state is
binding on all and its violation is resulted with
suitable punishment.
• It is universally accepted that a sovereign state
is legally competent to issue any command
that is binding on all citizens and their
associations.
 In addition to the essential attributes of the state agreed
in the 1933, the contemporary political theorists and the
UN considered recognition as the fifth essential
attribute of the state.
 It is to mean that, for a state to be legal actor in the
international stage; other actors (such as other states,
international intergovernmental and non-governmental
organizations… etc.) must recognize it as a state.
 Thus, recognition implies both approaching of the
necessary facts and the desire of coming in to effect of
the legal and political results of recognition.
 Likewise, for a government of a state to be formally to
act on its behalf, the government must be recognized as
legitimate government of the state by other
governments.
Rival Theories of State
• There are various rival theories of the state, each of
which offers a different account of its origins,
development and impact on society.
• Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories of
state into four:
– The pluralist state,
– The capitalist state, the
– Leviathan state
– The patriarchal state.
The Pluralist State
 The pluralist theory of the state has a very clear liberal
lineage
 It stems from the belief that the state acts as an ‘umpire’
or ‘referee’ in society. It is an Anglo-American
thought, that discount the state and state organizations
and focus on ‘government’.
 Courts, the civil service and the military being seen as
independent actors in their own right, rather than as
elements of a broader state machine.
 Nevertheless, this approach is possible only because it is
based on underlying, and often unacknowledged,
assumptions about state neutrality.
 The state can be ignored only because it is seen as
an impartial arbiter or referee that can be bent
to the will of the government of the day.
 The origins of this view of the state can be traced
back to the social-contract theories of thinkers
such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
 They argued that the individual is obliged to
obey and respect the state/government and the
state had arisen out of a voluntary agreement, or
social contract, while the establishment of a
sovereign power could safeguard them from the
insecurity, disorder and brutality of the state of
nature
 Without a state, individuals abuse, exploit and
enslave one another
 with a state, order and civilized existence are
guaranteed and liberty is protected. As Jhone
Locke put it, where there is no law there is no
freedom.
 In liberal theory, the state is seen as a neutral
arbiter amongst the competing groups and
individuals in society
 The neutrality of the state reflects the fact that the
state acts in the interests of all citizens, and
therefore represents the common good or
public interest.
 In Hobbes’ view, stability and order could be
secured only through the establishment of an
absolute and unlimited state, with power that
could be neither challenged, nor questioned.
 on the other hand, according to John Locke
the purpose of the state is very specific: it is
restricted to the defense of a set of ‘natural’ or
God-given individual rights; namely, life,
liberty and property.
 Locke believed that citizens must enjoy some
form of protection, which could be delivered
only through the constitutional and
representative government.
 Two key assumptions underlie this view.
A. State is effectively subordinate to government.
 Non-elected state bodies (the civil service, the
judiciary, the police, the military and so on) are
strictly impartial and are subject to the
authority of their political masters.
B. Democratic process is meaningful and
effective.
 In other words, party competition and interest-
group activity ensure that the government of the
day remains responsive to public opinion.
 Ultimately, therefore, the state is only a
weather vane that is blown in whichever
direction the public-at-large dictates.
 In Modern pluralists, (neo-pluralist )theory of
the state theorists such as Robert Dahl and
Charles Lindblom (1953) have come to accept
that modern industrialized states are both
more complex and less responsive to popular
pressures than classical pluralism suggested.
 Neo-pluralists, for instance, have
acknowledged that business enjoys a
‘privileged position’ in relation to government
that other groups clearly cannot rival.
 For Neo-pluralists if the state is regarded as a
political actor in its own right, it can be
viewed as a powerful (perhaps the most
powerful) interest group in society.
The Capitalist State
 Marxists have typically argued that the state
cannot be understood separately from the
economic structure of society.
 For Marxists state is an instrument of class
oppression: the state emerges out of, and in a
sense reflects, the class system.
 However, the precise relationship between the
base and the superstructure, i.e. between the
state and the capitalist mode of production, is
unclear.
 Marx suggested that the state could enjoy what
has come to be seen as ‘relative autonomy’ from
the class system,
 Marxist theorizing about the state has been
dominated by rival instrumentalist and
structuralist views of the state
The Leviathan State
 The leviathan state is a state that pursues its own

interest that are separate from society.

 In this view, the state is an overbearing ‘nanny’,
desperate to interfere or meddle in every aspect
of human existence.
 The image of the state as a ‘leviathan’ is one
associated in modern politics with the New
Right
 The New Right is distinguished by a strong
opposition towards state intervention in
economic and social life, born out of the belief
that the state is parasitic growth that threatens
both individual liberty and economic security.
 The central feature of leviathan state view is that
the state pursues interests that are separate
from those of society (opposite to Marxism), and
that those interests demand an unrelenting growth
in the role or responsibilities of the state itself.
 New Right thinkers argue that
 the 20thc tendency towards state intervention reflected not
popular pressure for economic and social security
 the expansionist dynamics of state power by reference to both
demand-side and supply-side pressures. Demand-side pressures
are those that emanate from society itself, usually through the
mechanism of electoral democracy. Supply-side pressures, on
the other hand, are those that are internal to the state.
 electoral competition encourages politicians to ‘outbid’ one
another by making promises of increased spending and more
generous government programs,
 Marxists argue that the state reflects broader class
and other social interests,
 However, the New Right portrays the state as an
independent or autonomous entity that pursues its
own interests.
 The Patriarchal State
 Patriarchy refers to the domination of society by
men, leading to oppression and exploitation of
women.
 This takes many forms from domination in the family
to imbalance of power in all social and political
relations between men and women.
 Feminism and feminist theories of the state highlight
the deep injustices towards women.
 Liberal feminists accept a pluralist view of the state
and want women to acquire legal and political
equality. And they believe that sexual or gender
equality can be brought about through incremental
reform.
 Liberal feminists
 recognize that, if women are denied legal and
political equality the state is biased in favor of
men.
 believe that all groups (including women)
have potentially equal access to state power
 view the state in positive terms, seeing state
intervention as a means of redressing gender
inequality and enhancing the role of women.
 But Radical feminists argue that state power reflects a
deeper structure of oppression in the form of
patriarchy. They belief that patriarchy is rooted in the division
of society into distinct ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of life,
 Whereas Marxists place the state in an economic
context, radical feminists place it in a context of
gender inequality, and insist that it is essentially an
institution of male power.
 In common with Marxism, distinctive instrumentalist
and structuralist versions of this feminist position
have been developed.
 The instrumentalist argument views the state as little
more than an agent or ‘tool’ used by men to defend
their own interests and uphold the structures of
patriarchy.
 Modern radical feminists have paid particular
attention to the emergence of the welfare state, seeing
it as the expression of a new kind of patriarchal power.
 The Role of the State
 there is profound disagreement about the exact
role the state should play, and the proper balance
between the state and civil society. Among the
different state forms that have developed are the
following:
 Minimal states
 Developmental states
 Social-democratic states
 Collectivized states
 Totalitarian states
 Religious states
 The minimal state
 It is the ideal of classical liberals, whose aim is to
ensure that individuals enjoy the widest possible realm
of freedom.
 It is rooted in social-contract theory, but it nevertheless
advances an essentially ‘negative’ view of the state.
 The state is merely a protective body, its core function
being to provide a framework of peace and social
order within which citizens can conduct their
lives as they think best.
 In Locke’s famous simile, the state acts as a night
watchman, whose services are called upon only when
orderly existence is threatened.
 Generally the three core functions of state are:-
 State exists to maintain domestic order.
 State ensures that contracts or voluntary
agreements made between private citizens are
enforced, and
 State provides protection against external
attack.
 The institutional apparatus of a minimal state
is thus limited to a police force, a court system
and a military of some kind.
 Examples of minimal states include UK and the
USA during the period of early industrialization
in the 19th C
 Developmental States
 A developmental state is one that intervenes in
economic life with the specific purpose of promoting
industrial growth and economic development,
includes mainly constructing a partnership between
the state and major economic interests, often
supported by conservative and nationalist priorities.
 For example in Japan and Germany, the state assumed
a more active ‘developmental’ role from the beginning.
 A similar developmental intervention has existed in
France, where governments tended to recognize the
need for economic planning, and the state
bureaucracy has seen itself as the guardian of the
national interest.
 In countries such as Austria and Germany,
economic development has been achieved
through the construction of a ‘partnership
state’, with emphasis on the maintenance of a
close r/ship between the state and major
economic interests.
 More recently, economic globalization has bring
the emergence of ‘competition states’, e.g. tiger
economies of East Asia.
 Competition states are distinguished by their
recognition of the need to strengthen education
and training
Social Democratic (Welfare) States
 social-democratic states intervene with a view to
bringing about broader social restructuring,
usually in accordance with principles such as
fairness, equality and social justice.
 In countries such as Austria and Sweden, state
intervention has been guided by both
developmental and social democratic
priorities.
 Nevertheless, developmentalism and social
democracy do not always go hand-in-hand.
 social-democratic state
 view state as a means of enlarging liberty and
promoting justice.
 is the ideal of both modern liberals and democratic
socialists.
 is an active participant; to correct the imbalances
and injustices of a market economy.
 Tends to focus the equitable or just distribution of
wealth.
 an attempt to eradicate poverty and reduce social
inequality
• Has twin features i.e. Keynesianism and social
welfare.
• Keynesians believe that, because prices are somewhat
rigid, fluctuations in any component of spending—
consumption,investment, or government expenditures—
cause output to change.
– If government spending increases, for example, and all other
spending components remain constant, then output will increase
• On the other hand social welfare system offers assistance
to individuals and families in need, with such programs as
health care assistance, food stamps, and unemployment
compensation.
• It is organized public or private social services for the
assistance of disadvantaged groups
– social welfare system include disaster relief and educational
assistance.
 Collectivized States
 While developmental and social-democratic states
intervene in economic life, collectivized states bring the
entirety of economic life under state control. E.g.
USSR and Eastern Europe.
 It wants to abolish private enterprise and set up
centrally planned economies.
 ‘command economies' organized through a system of
‘directive’ planning controlled by the highest organs of
the communist party.
 State collectivization promote socialist preference for
common ownership over private property.
 The collectivized state in the USSR became permanent,
and increasingly powerful and bureaucratic
 Totalitarian States
 Totalitarian States is the most extreme and extensive
form of interventionism
 It focus on construction of an all-embracing state, the
influence of every aspect of human existence. i.e.
economy, education, culture, religion, family life and so
on . The best examples of totalitarian states are Hitler
Germany, Stalin USSR and Saddam Hussein Iraq
 It’s pillars are a comprehensive process of surveillance
or investigation and terroristic policing, and a
pervasive system of ideological manipulation and
control.
Religious / theocratic States
 Religious states are founded on the basis of
religious principles.
 In other word, a religious state is a state
where religious laws are used to rule the
country and church and state are not
separated.
 Understanding Government
What is Government?

•Government :- is considered as any mechanism

through which ordered rule is maintained, including
the ability to make collective decisions and the
capacity to enforce them.
•A form of government can be identified in almost all
social institutions like families, school, businesses and
trade unions
•However, government in our context, is to refer to the
formal and institutional processes that operate at the
national level to maintain public order and facilitate
collective action.
•Government is
– A body or organ that administers a country and main
organization dealing with affairs of the whole country.
– One of the most essential components and also an
administrative wing of the state.
– Political organization comprising individuals and
institutions authorized to formulate public policies
and conduct affairs of state.
– empowered to establish and regulate the
interrelationships of the people within their
territorial confines
 Any form of government, to be stable and
effective, must possess two essential attributes:
authority and legitimacy.
Authority
 Is the ability to compel obedience or it is
‘legitimate power.’
 While power is the ability to influence the
behavior of others, authority is the right to do
so.
 Authority is the legitimacy, justification and
right to exercise that power.
 Legitimacy
 The term legitimacy broadly means rightfulness.
 It stimulates the governed to obey willingly with its
authority.
 It helps to transform power in to authority.
 Therefore, legitimacy is the popular acceptance of a
governing regime or law as an authority.
 Legitimacy is considered as a basic condition to rule;
without at least a minimal amount of legitimacy, a
government will deadlock or collapse.
 legitimacy is gained through the acquisition of power
in accordance with recognized or accepted standards
or principles
 Purposes and Functions of Government
• The major purposes and functions of government
include
– Self-Preservation: governments are responsible to
prevail order, predictability, internal security, and
external defense.
– Distribution and Regulation of Resources:
governments determine whether resources are going to
be controlled by the public or private sector.
– Management of Conflicts: Governments usually
develop and consolidate institutions and procedures for
the supervision and resolution of conflicts that may
arise in the society.
• Fulfillment of Social or Group Aspirations: promotion
of human rights, common good, and international peace.
• Protection of Rights of Citizens: protection of every
citizen’s human, democratic, political, social, economic
and cultural rights.
• Protection of Property: police and the court systems
that protect private and public property
• Implementations of Moral Conditions: laws and
institutions are designed to shape citizens character in
accordance with some standard of morality.
• Provision of Goods and Services: provision of
healthcare, education, development of public works,
provision of food, shelter, clothing for the public,
Developing social services, etc.
 Understanding Citizenship

Citizen
 refers to the person who is a legal member of a particular
State and one who owes allegiance to that State.
Citizenship
 is the means by which we determine whether a person is
legal member of a particular State.
 It refers to the rules regulating the legal/formal relations
between the State and the individual
 citizenship has been defined differently by scholars and
practitioners, as a result it has different meanings depending
on the historical legacies, political organization of the state,
ideologies and socio-cultural context of societies.
 Although differences may exist, there are common
elements such as
i) Citizenship as a Status of Rights
ii) Membership and Identity
iii) Participation
Iv) Inclusion and Exclusion
II. Citizenship as a Status of Rights:-this includes
A. civil rights:- refers individual liberty
B. political right, i.e. the right to exercise of political
power, as an elected member or as a voter
C. social rights, guarantee the right to public safety,
health, the right to education, etc.
 Right could be classified as primary rules and
secondary rules.
Liberty and claim rights termed as primary
rules, rules requiring that people perform or
refrain from doing particular action.
 Liberty Right:
 It is a freedom given for the right-holder to
do something and there are no obligations on
other parties , including the State, to do/not to
do anything to aid him/her
 the right to movement, right to express his/her idea
etc… articles 25 to 34 of the FDRE constitution
Claim Rights: Are the inverse of liberty
rights because, it entails responsibility upon
another person or body.
 Claim rights are rights enjoyed by individuals
when others discharge their obligations.
 It impose a corresponding duty on others to
help respect and protect the bearers.
E.g. unemployment and public service
benefits are claims that directly depend on
taxes paid by others
• The secondary rules includes Powers Rights and
Immunity Rights,
• These secondary rules specify how
agents/beholders can introduce, change and
alter the primary rules (liberty and claim rights).
• Powers Rights: are rights regarding the
modification of first-order rights.
• The holder of a power, be it a government or a
citizen, can change or cancel other people and
his/her own entitlements.
– E.g. Art 40(1) of the FDRE constitution
asserts that citizens have the rights to the
ownership of private property and to
modify, sale, donate or transfer their
property to a third party.
– Article 33(3) the FDRE constitution,
every Ethiopian citizen has the right to
renounce his/her Ethiopian
citizenship/nationality
• Immunity Rights: allow bearers escape from controls
and thus they are the opposite of power rights.
• Immunity rights entail the absence of a power in
other party to alter the right-holder’s normative
situation in some way.
• For instance, civil servants have a right not to be
dismissed from their job after a new government
comes to power.
• Article 18(3) of the FDRE constitution, “no one shall
be required to perform forced or compulsory
labour”.
• Immunities also comprise compensation for rights
violations that occurred in the past and at least partially
make up for past injustices or uneven burdens.
II. Membership and Identity:
 Citizenship is associated with membership of a
political community, with a specific identity that is
common to all which is linked to shared territory,
common culture, ethnic characteristics, history, etc.
III. Participation:
 There are two approaches in this regard; minimalists
and maximalists.
 A minimalist approach to citizenship characterized by a
kind of basic passive compliance with the rules of a
particular community/State, while the maximalist
approach imply active, broad participation of citizens
engagement in the State.
IV. Inclusion and Exclusion:
 All individuals living in a particular state do not
necessary mean that all are citizens.
 Citizens are fundamentally different from aliens in
enjoying privileges and shouldering responsibilities.
 There are some political and economic rights that are
reserved to and duties to be discharged by citizens only.
 However, Citizenship status is not only restricted to
persons. Organizations and [endemic] animals could also
be considered as citizens. This is called ‘corporate
citizenship’
 Also terms like ‘global citizen’ or ‘cosmopolitan
citizen’ are commonly used to refer to every human
living in the earth planet.
 Theorizing Citizenship
• There are different approaches to citizenship, some of
these approaches includes : liberal, communitarian,
republican and multicultural citizenship.
1. Citizenship in Liberal Thought
 It gives a strong emphasis to the individual liberty. The
primary political unit and the initial focus of all
fundamental political inquiry is the individual person.
 It insist that individuals should be free to decide on
their own conception. Thus, the individual is morally
prior to the community: the community matters only because
it contributes to the well-being of the individuals who compose it.
 individuals have the right to choose their level of participation
in the community in order to fulfill and maximize their own self-
interest
 There are three fundamental principles which a
liberal government must provide and protect:
I. Equality:- the government has to treat individuals
II. Due process,
 Due process is a requirement that legal matters be
resolved according to established rules and principles,
and that individuals be treated fairly
 The government is required to treat individuals over
whom it exercises power fairly;
III.mutual consent by which membership in the
political community rests on the consensual
relationship between the individual and the
state.
 2. Citizenship in Communitarian Thought
• It emphasizes on the importance of society in articulating the
good. And it argue that the identity of citizens cannot be
understood outside the territory in which they live, their
culture and traditions,
• The political subject, above all, belongs to a community. Thus,
communitarians view individuals as the product of social
practices.
• Privileging individual autonomy is seen as destructive of
communities.
• As a result, the good of the community is much above
individual rights and citizenship comes from the community
identity, enabling people to participate.
• Communitarianism claims that an individual’s sense of identity
is produced only through relations with others in the
• Communitarian citizenship thought has been
criticized it’s hostile towards individual rights and
autonomy – even that it is authoritarian since it
melts the self into the society.
3. Citizenship in Republican Thought
 emphasis on both individual and group rights.
 There are two essential elements of the
republican citizenship: publicity and self-
government.
 Publicity basically refers to the condition of being
open and public, where people joined by common
concerns that takes them beyond their private lives.
 4. Multicultural Citizenship
• This approach is appropriate to highly diverse
societies and contemporary economic trends.
• Multicultural citizenship discuss four principles
 Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point.
 Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not
necessarily lead to equality of respect, resources,
opportunities or welfare
 Establishing mechanisms for group representation and
participation. Despite formal equality, disadvantaged
 Differential treatment for people with different
characteristics, needs and wants.
 Modes/Ways of Acquiring and Loosing
Citizenship

A. Ways of Acquiring Citizenship

 the common ways of acquiring citizenship can be grouped
in to two: citizenship by birth and citizenship through
naturalization/law.
 i) Citizenship from birth/of Origin: individuals can get
citizenship status of a particular State either because he/she
is born in the territorial administration of that or his/her
mother and/or father are citizens of the State in question.
 There are two principles of citizenship from birth
commonly known as Jus Soli (law/right of the soil) and
Jus Sanguinis (law/right of blood).
• Jus Soli is a principle whereby an individual is
permitted to obtain citizenship status of a particular
State because he/she was born in the territorial
administration of that country,
• Jus Sanguinis is a norm where citizenship acquired
claiming one’s parents citizenship status.
• However, jus soli could not apply to children
born from diplomats and refugees live in a host
State.
• Jus soli is not allowed to diplomats because of two
special principles (international diplomatic
immunities): extraterritoriality and inviolability
principles.
ii) Citizenship by Naturalization/Law:
• It is the legal process by which foreigners become citizens of
another country, because of Political case (secession, merger
and subjugation), grant on application, marriage,
legitimatization/adoption, and reintegration/restoration.
• Citizenship by political case is a process by which an
individual person acquires citizenship of a certain State
following the conquest or cession of a territory.
• In case a particular territory is merged to or subjugated by
another country, people domiciled in that territory would
acquire a new citizenship.
• Besides, in cases of secession option may be given to
individuals to choose either country’s citizenship. Let us now
discuss the remaining ways of acquiring citizenship vis-à-vis
to Ethiopia.
 The Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian
Citizenship
•Before the 1930, there wasn’t officially inscribed legal document
that deals with citizenship. But in 1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal
document named as “Ethiopian Nationality Law”.

•Recently, this nationality law has replaced by another legal

document called “Ethiopian Nationality Proclamation NO.
378/2003” which was adopted in 2003 by the House of People’s
Representatives.

•This proclamation affirmed that a person can acquire

Ethiopian citizenship either by birth or naturalization.
1) Acquisition by Descent: the 1930 Ethiopian nationality law
asserted that “any person born in Ethiopia or abroad, whose
father or mother is Ethiopian, is an Ethiopian subject.”
• Article 6(1), the 1995 FDRE constitution stated that “any
person of either sex shall be an Ethiopian national where
both or either parent is Ethiopian.”
• In line with this, Article 3 “Any person shall be an
Ethiopian national by descent where both or either of
his/her parent is Ethiopian;” second,
• “An infant who is found abandoned in Ethiopia shall, unless
proved to have a foreign nationality, be deemed to have been
born to an Ethiopian parent and shall acquire Ethiopian
nationality.”
• any person can’t acquire Ethiopian citizenship through
the principle of Jus Soli
• 2) Acquisition by Law (Naturalization):
Article 6(2) of the 1995 FDRE constitution
also avers that aliens can get Ethiopian
citizenship. Articles 5 to 12 of the 2003
nationality proclamation explain about this
citizenship right. These includes:-
• a) Grant on Application (registration):
happens when an alien requests a host state to
be granted citizenship status of the country in
question. This can be acquired by fulfill
certain requirements.
• For instance, according to Article 5 of the 2003
Ethiopian nationality proclamation, an applicant shall
get Ethiopian nationality if, and only if, he/she
– reach the age of majority, 18 years;
– lived in Ethiopia for a total of at least four years;
– has sufficient and lawful source of income
– is able to communicate in any of the indigenous languages
– has a good character;
– has not recorded criminal conviction;
– has been released from his/her previous nationality
– takes the oath of allegiance indicated in Article 12 of the
proclamation: “I-----, solemnly affirm that I will be a loyal
national of the federal democratic republic of Ethiopia and
be faithful to its constitution”.
• b) Cases of Marriage:
• an alien who is married to an Ethiopian citizen have
the possibility of acquiring Ethiopian citizenship.
• But alien married to an Ethiopian citizen must fulfill
the following .
– marriage shall be thru in accordance with the laws of
Ethiopia or the State where the marriage is contracted;
– the marriage shall lapse at least for two years;
– the alien married to an Ethiopian citizen have to live in
Ethiopian for at least one year preceding the
submission of the application;
– the alien have to reach the age of majority, be a morally
good person, and lastly take the oath of allegiance stated
under Article 12 of the proclamation.
c) Cases of Adoption (Legitimating): according to article 7 a
child adopted by and grown under the caretaker of Ethiopian
citizen has the right to acquire Ethiopian citizenship.

•But, the child could get Ethiopian citizenship if the child has not
attained the age of majority; lives in Ethiopia together with
his/her adopting parent; and has been released from his/her
previous nationality or that he/she is a stateless person.

•However, where one of his/her adopting parents is a foreigner,,

such a parent has to express his/her agreement that his/her adopted
child gain Ethiopian nationality, in written application.
D. Citizenship by Special Cases: as it is labeled
in Article 8, an alien who has made an
outstanding contribution in the interest of
Ethiopia may be conferred with Ethiopian
nationality by law without undergoing the pre-
conditions stated in Article 5 (sub-articles 2 and
3)
 That is, he/she is not required to live in
Ethiopia for a total of four years and may lack
the ability to communicate in any of the
languages spoken in Ethiopia.
E. Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality
(Reintegration/Restoration) : this is a process by which a
person acquires his/her lost citizenship. The 2003
Ethiopian nationality proclamation acknowledges this
principle in its Article 22. That is, a person who has lost
Ethiopian citizenship status may get back Ethiopian
nationality.
• However, there are requirements in which the person is
expected to fulfill. In this case, the person could be
readmitted to Ethiopian nationality
– if he/she applies to the Security, Immigration and Refugee
Affairs Authority for re-admission.
– In addition, he/she has to return and domiciled in Ethiopia and
renounces his foreign nationality to get back Ethiopian
nationality.
Dual Citizenship
• Dual citizenship is the condition of being a citizen of two
nations.
• Ethiopia prohibits its citizens to have dual citizenship. Article
20(1) of the 2003 nationality proclamation assert that “any
Ethiopian who voluntarily acquires another nationality shall be
deemed to have voluntarily renounced his Ethiopian nationality.”
• However, a person who retains another country’s citizenship or
voluntary renounces his Ethiopian nationality may not be allowed
to release his/her Ethiopian citizenship if he/she hasn’t discharged
his/her outstanding national obligations and/or has been acquitted
or served the penalty for the crime he/she accused of or convicted
(see Article 19(4) of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality
proclamation). Therefore, under this condition which is called
indelible allegiance, the person would remain dual/multiple
citizen, an Ethiopian and the country he/she acquires citizenship
through law (see also Article 20(4) of the 2003 nationality
• 4.7.4. Ways of Loosing Citizenship
• Citizenship can be lost when a State provides for lapse or
withdrawal of citizenship under certain conditions, or when
a citizen voluntary renounces it. The primary rational for
loss of citizenship is the absence of a genuine link with
the state. Many citizenship laws also provide for loss if
there has been fraud in the course of acquiring
citizenship. Some States have provisions for depriving
people of citizenship in cases where their behavior is
considered to demonstrate disloyalty towards the state.
• denationalization grounds into three categories: allegiance,
punishment, and public order. One may lose a country’s
citizenship when he/she demonstrates a lack of allegiance
which could be explained through what we called active
disloyalty (for example, treason)
• Generally, the commonly discussed ways of
losing citizenship are deprivation,
renunciation, lapse or expiration and
substitution.
• Deprivation is an involuntary loss of
citizenship which arises while government
authorities or court take a decision to nullify an
individual’s citizenship. It is on the assumption
that the burden of justification for the loss of
citizenship of an individual lies on the state.
•Lapse/expiration is a mode whereby a person loses his/her
citizenship because of his/her permanent residence or long term
residence abroad beyond the number of years permitted by the
country in question. For example, if an Indian citizen stays outside
his/her country continuously for more than seven years, he/she
automatically loses his/her Indian nationality by the principle of lapse.
• Renunciation is the voluntary way of losing citizenship. The
UDHR (1948) guarantees the right of a person to change his/her
nationality. Loss of citizenship is voluntary only if it is intended
and initiated by the individual concerned. An Ethiopian national
has the full right to renounce his/her Ethiopian nationality if
he/she wishes according to Article 33(3) of the FDRE
constitution and Article 19 of the 2003 Ethiopian nationality
proclamations.
• Substitution: citizenship may be lost when
the original citizenship is substituted by
another state, when a particular territory is
annexed by another state; the inhabitants’
citizenship within the annexed territory will be
replaced by the citizenship of the subjugator.
• Ethiopian citizen can lose his/her Ethiopian
nationality only through renunciation and
upon acquisition of other country’s nationality
stipulated in article 19 and 20 of the 2003
nationality proclamation, respectively.
Statelessness
• Statelessness is the condition of having citizenship of any
country and with no government from which to ask
protection.
• stateless person is a person who is not considered as a
national by any state under the operation of its law.
Statelessness almost always results when state failure leads
people to flee – be it due to invasion and conquest by
another state, civil war, famine, or an oppressive regime –
from their home country. Individuals could also become
stateless persons because of deprivation and when
renouncing their citizenship without gaining nationality in
another State. Some people become stateless as a result of
government action. To settle such conditions, the UN has
adopted a convention on the protection and reduction of
stateless persons.
 Chapter Five
Constitution, Democracy
and Human Rights
5.1. Constitution and Constitutionalism
Conceptualizing Constitution
• Constitution is the
– fundamental or basic law of a state
– Blue print placed on top the hierarchy of laws on
constitutional governments.
– Collection of principles according to which the powers of the
government, the rights of the governed, and the relation
between the two are adjusted.
– Body of rules and laws, that determine the organization of
government and the distribution of powers and functions to
various organs of government
– Mother of all laws; all other ordinary laws are derived from
and subjected to this blue print.
– Supreme law of a land, any other law contradicted with the
provisions of the constitution becomes void or invalid.
 Peculiar Features of Constitution
Some of the distinctive features of a constitution are
Generality, Permanency, Supremacy, Codified
document, and Allocation of powers
A. Generality:
 it provides the general principle of a state and sets
out general framework of the law and the
government.
 Constitutional principles are guidelines for others
laws.
 In other words it builds substantial foundation and
basis and general framework of the law and
government.
B. Permanency:
 It is purposely made to be stable and permanent.
Unlike other laws constitution is made for undefined
period of time.
 constitution serve for a long lap of ages. On the
contrary, other laws are tentative, occasional and in the
nature of temporary existence.
C. Supremacy:
 They are supreme laws, taking precedence over all
others, and defining how all the others should be made.
 As a mother of law,
 It is original because it is directly made by the people as the
direct expression of the will of the people.
 All other laws are secondary or derivate being commands of
D. Codified document:
 Constitutions are written down; often in a
document that presents the constitution in a
systematic manner.
E. Allocation of powers:
 Constitutions outline the proper relations between
institutions and offices of the state, and between
government and citizens.
 This is probably the most crucial part because it
allocates powers and functions to government and
specifies the rights and duties of governments and
citizens-who can do what, to whom, and under what
circumstances
Major Purposes and Functions of Constitution
A. It serves as a framework for Government:
 Constitution of state is a plan for organizing the operation
of government
 Effectively guides the functions and powers of the
executive, legislative and judicial bodies of government.
 It is a brief and a general outline of duties and rights of
governments and also that of citizens.
B. It Limits the Powers of Government:
 Government officials are always abided by the
constitution.
 There is no decision that will be undertaken arbitrarily
and spontaneously rather every decision, is entertained
according to the constitution.
c,. It protects individual and collective rights of citizens:
 constitution of a state lay down the relationship between the state and
the individual by making out the respective spheres of government on
the one hand, and the individual and collective rights and freedoms on
the other.
d. It serves as the Supreme (Highest) Law of a Country
 Constitution is the source of and supreme over all laws in a country.
i.e. No specific law will be valid if it contradicts the constitution.
e. It provides Government legitimacy/stability:
 it formalize and regulate relationships between political bodies and
citizens and also provide mechanisms through which any potential
conflicts can be adjudicated and resolved, constitution usually provide
the vital function of introducing a measure of stability, order, and
predictability of government.
f. Constitution Blue Prints for establishing Values and Goals:
 In a constitution there is also an ideological aspect of constitution
making where the people truly aspired for it.
 Classification of Constitutions
1. Constitution based on form
A. Written Constitution
• is a formal document that defines the nature of the constitutional
settlement, the rules that govern the political system and the rights of
citizens and governments in a codified form. For example, India,
Kenya, Ethiopia, USA, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, Jordan, Venezuela
and Nigeria have written form of constitution.
• Merits of Written Constitution
– It is easily accessible to citizens that enable them to monitor the behavior of
their government thus preventing the emergency of dictatorship
– Citizens can easily learn about their rights and duties and the basic laws
governing the patterns of political processes of their nation
– It is full of clarity and definiteness because the provisions are written in detail.
– It has the quality of stability, since people know the nature of constitutional
provisions , they feel a sense of satisfaction
Demerits of written constitution
• It creates a situation of rigidity. Since all important
rules are on writing, attempts are made to act according
to rules. It leads to the development of a conservative
attitude.
• It becomes difficult to change it easily quickly as per the
requirements of time.
• It becomes a play thing in the hands of the lawyers and
the courts. Different interpretations come up from
time to time that unsettle the judicial thought of the
country.
• It is not easily adapted to a new situation or changing
circumstances. It needs be continuously amended to be
adapted to a new situation
B. Unwritten Constitution
• It is basically the fundamental principle and power of the
government which is not written down in any single
document
• It consists of customs, conventions, traditions, and
some written laws bearing different dates.
Merits of Unwritten Constitution
• It has the quality of elasticity and adaptability.
• It is so dynamic that it prevents the chances of popular
uprisings.
• It can absorb and also recover from shocks that may
destroy a written constitution
Demerits of Unwritten Constitution
• Since it is not compiled in to a single document, it is not
easily accessible to the public to determine which aspects
of the constitution are violated and when it is violated
• It is difficult to create awareness through education on
the fundamental constitutional rights and duties of citizens
because it is not easily accessible to citizens
• It leads to situations of instability and confusion.
Controversies often arise over different provisions of the
constitution having their place in the usages and customs of
the country.
• It certainly does not suit a democracy where people are
always conscious and suspicious of constitutional provisions
• It may be suitable to a monarchical or aristocratic
system.
B. Constitution based on complexity of amending process
 On the basis of the distinction in the process of amendment,
constitutions may be classified as rigid and flexible.
1. Rigid Constitution
– The process of amendment is difficult.
– A special procedure is followed to make a change in any rule
of the constitution.
– A constitutional amendment bill must be passed by the
parliament by special majority
– constitutional amendment is the one which requires a
national referendum.
– A referendum is the process of direct voting by citizens to
support or rejects at constitutional amendment or other major
national issues.
• EXAMPLE USA, Australia, Denmark and Switzerland are
known to have rigid constitutions.
2. Flexible Constitution
 Flexible constitution is the constitution which set up
simple amendment procedure and there is as such
no special required procedure for amending a
constitution.
 The simplest and commonest amendment procedure
is the one which requires an absolute majority (two
thirds support) in the parliament
 EXAMPLE United Kingdom and New Zealand,
may be altered by a simple majority vote in the
legislature
C. Constitution based on Degree of practice
1. Effective Constitution
 In this type of constitution
– Practical affairs of government should correspond to the
provision of the constitution
– Governmental power and behavior should be limited
2. Nominal constitution
 It existed only on paper and fail to limit government
power . Texts, principles, rules and laws that may
accurately describe the government behavior but fail to limit
government behavior and activities in practice.
 Nominal constitution is not observed in practice but in form.
D. Based on the kind of state structure
1. Federal Constitution:
– It distributes power among the different units of a state
administration.
– The powers divided between the federal government and states or
provinces will be clearly set down in the constituent document
2. Unitary Constitution
– Power is concentrated in the hands of the central
government.
– Central government can establish or abolish the
lower levels of government; determine their
composition, and their power and functions.
– Local government has no guarantee for their existence.
Powers and responsibilities are delegated to them by the
Constitutionalism
 It is doctrine that governments should be faithful to their
constitutions
 It checks whether the act of government is legitimate and
whether officials conduct their public duties in
accordance with laws pre-determined in advance.
The Constitutional Experience of Ethiopia: Pre
and Post 1931
A. Traditional Constitution (Pre- 1931)
 Documents like the Kebra Nagast, the Fatha Nagast and
serate mengest were used as source of law from the 13th
Century until the early 20th Century
 1. Fetha Negest (The Law of Kings)
 It was a religious and secular legal provision , which was
collection of laws which in use in Christian Ethiopia
for many centuries.
 It was used as the sources of constitutional, civil, and
criminal laws.
 It was compiled from the Old Testament, the New
Testament, and the Roman law.
 It was fundamental laws and the king vested with absolute
power. It contains the idea of divine rights of kings with
the assumption that rules have a God given power.
 The throne was hereditary, the king was thought to be
appointed divinely, that is derives his power directly from
God.
2. Kibre Negest (The Glory of Kings)
• Kibre Negest means glory of king. It was written and
completed in the early 14th Century.
• It was the most important traditional document that define
who should become king in Ethiopia i.e., It determine
the succession of the throne in Ethiopia. It was the
principal sources of legitimacy for the kings.
• It takes the Ethiopian history back to the Solomonic
dynasty,
• It determined that any king in Ethiopia must descend
from the Solomonic dynasty(must have such blood
relationship with the dynasty)
3. Ser’ate Mengist
• It Provide administrative protocol and directives in the 19 c
th
 WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIENCE
a. The 1931 First Written Constitution
• The constitution reinforced the traditional position of the
emperor as Siyume‗Egziabiher, Niguse Negast Za Ethiopia‘
which means: Elect of God, King of Kings of Ethiopia
• Both internal and external factors forced the
development of the 1931 constitution.
• Externally
– the result of the growing interaction between Ethiopia
and the external world, particularly the western European
countries
– The emperor had to convince the world that his country
was modernizing and taking her place among the
civilized states
• Internally,
– the 1931 constitution was intended to provide a legal framework
for the suppression of the powerful traditional nobilities to the
emperor.
– The emperor has a deep interest of centralizing the state power in
the internal politics of the country. This was effectively done by
absolutist nature of the constitution.
– It was designed to unify and centralize all state power in the
hands of the monarch.
b. The Revised Constitution of 1955
 It was revised because of internal and external factors mainly to
cope up with the social and political dynamics of the then
period, global politics, and Ethio-Eritrean federation.
 It comes with a slight modification in the structure of the
system of governance, limiting the power of the emperor to a
certain extent and a relatively better recognition of rights and
freedoms.
c. The 1987 Constitution of People Ethiopia (PDRE)
• Immediately after came to power, the Dergue setup the Provisional
Military Administrative Council (PMAC)- temporary government
• A series of decrees and proclamations were used as legal rules until
the adoption of the 1987 constitution
• the time from 1974-1987 was a period of constitutional vacuum in
Ethiopia.
• The People‘s Democratic Ethiopia constitution (1987) was different
from the 1931 and the 1955 imperial constitutions, because:-
– State and religion were separated (issue of secularism was
included in the constitution) for the first time;
– State the political power and sovereignty were declared to be the
preserve of the working people of Ethiopia.
– contains provisions on democratic and human rights;
– recognized the different cultural identities and the equality of
Nation and Nationalities;
 – Introduced a party system by giving recognition to
the workers party of Ethiopia. Thus, leading to a
transition from a none party system to a single party
system;
– aimed at the principles of Marxist and Leninist
ideology;
– It introduced Republican form of
government
– Aimed at giving power to the peoples so that they
exercise through referendum, local and national
assembly.
• Practically, however, the 1987 constitution was not
different from the 1931 and 1955 constitutions.
d. The 1995 (FDRE) Constitution
• It was adopted by the constituent assembly on 8
Dec 1994 and promulgated on 21 August 1995
• It introduced Federal form of state (Ethnic
federalism not territorial) and multi party system
of government
• It gave emphasis to ethno linguistic components of
Ethiopia and it made the Nations, Nationalities
and Peoples of Ethiopia the owner of the
constitution.
• states that “all sovereign power resides in the
Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia”
 Democracy and Democratization
Defining Democracy
 Democracy is a vague, broad and abstract concept that lacks a
clear and precise definition. Various scholars have been defined
democracy in different ways from their own point of understanding.
 Democracy comes from the Greek words, "demos," and
“kratien” which mean authority or government.
 it is the people who hold sovereign power over legislator and
government’s
 Democracy is a system of government by which the people rule
themselves
 in democratic form of government supreme political power
resides in the hand of the people and exercised either directly
by themselves or by their elected representatives.
• Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the
people.“
• Democracy is institutionalization of freedom since it incorporates a set of ideas and principles
about rights and freedoms.
WAYS OF EXERCISING DEMOCRACY
 Direct and indirect democracy
Direct democracy
o It implies a form of government in which the right to make political decisions
is exercised directly by the whole body of citizens acting under procedures of
majority rule.
o It is also known as pure/classical democracy.
o Every decision concerning the government is decided based on popular vote.
o In Ancient Greece city states were relatively had small population it was
manageable to conduct direct democracy.
o In modern society/state, because of the population size of countries direct
democracy has lost its validity and substituted by indirect/ representative
democracy.
o However even in modern times there are some cases that governments applied
direct democracy. These include referendum, recall, initiative and plebiscite.
Indirect democracy
• It refers to a form of government in which citizens
exercise their rights and freedoms and discharge
their obligations not in person but through
representatives chosen by themselves.
• Citizens will submit their sovereignty for their
representatives.
• The representatives will act on the behalf of the
citizens they are representing.
 procedural minimal conditions must be fulfilled for
modern political democracy to be existent. The major ones
are:
– Control over government decisions about policy is
constitutionally vested in elected officials.
– Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fair elections
– Practically all adults have the right to vote in the
election and right to run for elective offices
– Citizens have a right to express themselves
– Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of
information.
– Citizens also have the right to form relatively
independent associations or organizations, including
independent political parties and interest groups.
 Values and Principles of Democracy
• There are three core values that are central in the discussion of
the concept of democracy. These are Liberty, justice and
equality
1. Liberty:
• personal freedom - Individuals should be free from arbitrary
arrest and detention and also their homes/property should be
secured from unreasonable searches.
• political freedom -peoples have the right to participate freely in
the political process such as elections without being subject to
arbitrary arrest, harassment and electoral corruption such as
buying votes, intimidation and obstruction of voter
• economic freedom -the right to acquire, use, transfer and
dispose of private property without unreasonable governmental
interference and more over to enjoy right to seek employment
wherever one pleases, to change employment at will and to
2. Justice: This can be understood in three general senses of fairness .
• distributive Justice -the sense of distributing benefits and burdens
in society via agreed up on standards of fairness
• corrective Justice -the sense that a proportional response should
be in place to correct wrongs and injuries
• procedural justice -the idea that procedures used for gathering
information and making decisions should be guided by such
principles as impartiality and openness of proceedings
3. Equality:
• political equality -implying that all people who attain the status of
adult hood have equal political rights or in short one man-one
vote- one value
• social equality -implying that there should be no social hierarchy
at individual and collective level or no discrimination what so ever
• economic equality -implying that all peoples of a country deserve
equal and fair assessment to the national resources services
 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF
DEMOCRACY
 The following are principles of democracy
A. Popular Sovereignty
B. Constitutional Supremacy
C. Rule of Law
D. Secularism
E. Separation of Powers
F. Free, Fair and Periodic Election
G. Majority Rule Minority Right
H. Protection and Promotion of Human Rights
I. Multiparty System
 They are some key elements that distinguish states
organized under democratic principles from
Democratization
• It is the process of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic
regimes that occur within a specified period of time
• It is not a simple process and will taken an extend period of time
to complete, if it wishes to be prosperous.
• There are three main elements in democratization such as
• the removal of the authoritarian regime,
• installation of a democratic regime,
• consolidation, or long-term sustainability of the
democratic regime.
 It is a full-scale transition from authoritarian
regime and its replacement by democratically
elected regime.
 democratization represents a true rapture and a political
 Actors of Democratization
1. Political Parties
– Citizens extend their desires, needs, and problems to the government
through the political parties.
– political parties represent an essential and important tool that acts as a
bridge between a society and its government.
– The existence of a strong and viable opposition keeps the ruling party
alert.
– It is also the duty of political parties to promote policies that will
educate the people about how a democratic system functions and offer
different policy packages to the electorates.
2. Media
– Mass Media and Democracy are always related to each other.
– Media is a mirror of the society and how democratic a society is, can
be represented through media
– Countries which are strong democracies always have strong and
free media.
 3. Civic societies
• Their roles for democratic development includes
– Limiting the power of the state and challenging the
abuses of authority;
– Monitoring human rights and strengthening the rule of
law;
– Monitoring elections and enhancing the overall quality
and credibility of the democratic process;
– Educating citizens about rights and responsibilities;
– Building a culture of tolerance and civic involvement
– Incorporating marginal groups into the political process
– Opening and pluralizing the flows of information; and
– Building a constituency for economic as well as
political reforms
Human Rights: Concepts and Theories
• What are Human Right?
– They are basic to humanity.
– They applied to all people everywhere.
– They are fundamental entitlements belong to every
member of the human race.
– They are privileges someone can claim just because
he/she is a human being without any discrimination
based on condition.
 Main Principles of Human Rights
 Human right is universal, it is to show their worldwide applicability. This means
all rights are expected to be applied equally everywhere, every-time and to
everyone in this world.
 They transcend time, geographical and cultural disparities. However, this is not
to mean that no room is available to contextual realities and value differences
among various communities around the globe.
 Article1 of UDHR explains that human beings are born free and
equal in dignity to every human being ―without distinction of
political or other opinion, national or social origin
 Human right is inalienable.
 That means you cannot lose these rights any more than you can
stop to be a human being.
 These entitlements are essential to live a human or worth-living
life.
 Human rights are not luxury or privileges we only enjoy after
some preconditions are met, rather part of our basic necessities .
• Human rights are indivisible.
– This implies that human rights are inherent to the dignity
of every human person.
– It is not possible for one to live a worth living life
without the full respect of these rights; this concerns
all the civil, cultural, economic, political or social rights
endowed for all human beings.
• Human rights are interdependent and interrelated.
– This is to mean that all rights have equal
weight/importance and it is not possible for one to fully
enjoy any of his/her right without the others.
– For instance, one cannot enjoy his/her right to life
without his/her rights of health, education, freedom from
torture and inhuman treatment, right to an adequate
standard of living and the like.
 Human Rights and Responsibilities
• Human rights involve responsibility and duties toward
other people and the community.
• Individuals often have a responsibility to ensure that they
exercise their rights with due regard for the rights of others.
For example, exercising freedom of privacy.
• As part of this, there must be a legal, social and
international order for human rights to be realized
effectively.
• This is clearly stated in various human rights instruments
and resolutions issued by
• UN including the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESC),
• Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC),
• Convention on all forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Paris
Landmarks in Development of Human Rights
• The modern human rights notions are the result of extended struggles
to end many forms of oppressions; including slavery, genocide,
discrimination, and government tyranny, in history of world societies.
Rights Holders and Duty Bearers
• Right holders are those who are entitled to
enjoy, possess or claim a given right.
• Duty bearers are those who carry the
obligation of promoting, protecting, and
fulfilling these right to the right holders
• The following diagram shows the relationship
among rights holders and duty bears from
human rights perspective.
Categories of Human Rights
a. Civil and Political Rights
 Civil and political rights are the first generation rights which uphold the
sanctity of the individual before the law and guarantee his or her ability to
participate freely in civil, economic, and political society. Example
 right to life,
 liberty and personal security,
 equality before the law,
 protection from arbitrary arrest and the right to religious freedom and
worship.
B. Social , Economic and cultural Rights(2nd generation)
 Social and economic rights include such rights as
 the right to education,
 health and wellbeing,
 work and fair remuneration,
 form trade unions and free associations,
 leisure time, and the right to social security. When protected, these rights help
promote individual flourishing, social and economic development, and self-
 C. Peace, Development And Environmental
Rights
 Third generation (solidarity) rights are aimed to
guarantee that all individuals and groups have the right
to share in the benefits of the earth's natural resources,
as well as those goods and products that are made through
processes of economic growth, expansion, and innovation.
 Many of these rights are transnational in nature.
 They requires redistribution of wealth, resources
from developed to developing nations.
 They also require global cooperation and shared
responsibility to world peace, development and the
environment. Example
 the right to development, environment and peace
Derogations and Limitations on Human Rights
• There are two conditions under which human rights
can be restricted i.e. limitation and derogation
– Limitations are lawful violations of rights
– Restrictions are acceptable or justifiable limits of human
rights during the normal times.
– Derogation means a temporary non-application and
suspension of rights by the state in abnormal or
emergency (natural/artificial) situations.
• In Ethiopia, for example, both federal and regional
governments have constitutional powers to limit
exercising human rights since they have the power
to declare state of emergency is their respective
domains
• Regional states can declare in two conditions:
• natural disaster and
• epidemics.
• Besides, the FDRE Constitution (Art. 93) clearly
specifies four conditions for such declaration by the
Federal Government.
• The Council of Ministers can declare a State of
Emergency in the following situations:
1) External Invasion,
2) Breakdown of law and order when it:
(i) endangers the constitutional order,
(ii) cannot be controlled by regular law enforcement,
3) Natural disaster, and
4) Epidemic.
Non-Derogability of Human Rights
• There are also certain unique and inherent human
rights, which can never be suspended under any
circumstances. According to ICCPR(International
Covenant on Civil and Political) are some of them :
• right against arbitrary deprivation of life (art. 6);
• freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment or punishment; and freedom from medical or
scientific experimentation without consent (art. 7);
• freedom from slavery and servitude (art. 8);
• freedom from imprisonment for inability to fulfill a contractual
obligation (art. 11);
• prohibition against the retrospective operation of criminal laws
(art. 15); right to recognition before the law (art. 16); and
• freedom of thought, conscience and religion (art. 18).
 Implementation and Enforcement of Human Rights
1. International Mechanisms and the International
Bill of Human Rights
• The main objectives of the international law and its
institutions is in one way or another related with the
protection of human rights.
Regional Mechanisms
• In addition to the international human rights regime
functioned under the UN umbrella, there are
regional human rights systems which cover three
parts of the world;
– Africa, the
– Americas and
– Europe.
• These two (international and regional) systems
are aimed to make sure state actors are
– fulfilling their obligation in
» promoting,
» protecting,
» providing and fulfilling human rights
THANK YOU