530 results on '"State of nature"'
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2. A right to exclusion or a right to migration? – Neither!
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Tiedemann, Paul
- Published
- 2024
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3. UYGARLIK ELEŞTİRİSİ VE TOPLUMUN TEMELİNE DAİR İKİ GÖRÜŞ: ROUSSEAU VE NIETZSCHE.
- Author
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ERKEK, Fatma
- Abstract
Copyright of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) is the property of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...
- Published
- 2015
4. The Genealogy of Natural Law
- Author
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Noah Garver
- Subjects
Social contract ,Legal positivism ,Natural law ,Teleology ,media_common.quotation_subject ,State of nature ,Sociology ,Philosophy of law ,Morality ,Argumentation theory ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
Many of the foundations to the question about ‘what law is’ rest on the shaky ground of state of nature theory. The idea is that we must give up some rights to avoid the alternative account of having no state, and be at the risk of having no rights. It is common ground to think at the very least some laws are preferable to no laws, but a more clear picture on how a state could derive its authority, might give insight to an analysis of the nature of law. I argue that the law developed gradually and necessarily with the state, and that this conception of law can solve certain problems surrounding the role of different lawmakers, the connection between law and morality, and other problems. It is the view of this paper that there is a teleological guiding force between human organization and the concept of law. I argue that the concept of teleology need not contain serious metaphysical commitments. A naturalist is not precluded from this view. I draw a distinction between absolute and conceptual teleology. Next this paper evaluates historical and genealogical approaches to argumentation. I look at the groundbreaking work done by Nietzsche and Foucault and contrast it with approaches taken in the past. I find that the distinction is smaller than Foucault himself might have thought. I also contemplate where state of nature theorists fit into this type of reasoning. Ultimately, this paper aims at reframing the debate between natural law and legal positivism. more...
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- 2021
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5. Reasoned Decisions and Legal Theory.
- Abstract
In dealing with the antinomy of reason and fiat, the main effort of the various schools of legal philosophy has been to obliterate one of its branches. [T]he historical study of legal institutions may have more to offer to … [the] … solution [of the problems of legal theory] than has yet been appreciated. The common law tradition claims not only that the law is reason but also that the reason of the law is morally good. Judges' reasons for decision, their judgments, are considered within this tradition to be evidence for this claim, for the way in which the common law “works itself pure.” Philosophers of law who work in common law jurisdictions have taken one of three approaches to this claim. First, there are philosophers who have tried to make sense of the common law through an argument that in attending to the way that judges interpret the law, we will not only best understand law but also discern the connection between law and morality. We will call such philosophers, without any pejorative intent, common law romantics. Most notable among them is Ronald Dworkin. Second, philosophers have argued that the common law is a mess – in Jeremy Bentham's words, a “shapeless heap of odds and ends.” Such a mess, Bentham argued, leads to uncertainty about the law that not only is contrary to the demands of utility but permits “Judge & Co.” to arrogate power that properly belongs to the legislature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 2007
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6. Natural Law, Common Law, and the Constitution.
- Abstract
Nihil quod est contra rationem est licitum – “Nothing that is against reason is lawful” – was a favorite maxim of Sir Edward Coke, the seventeenth-century Englishman's oracle of the common law and an authority still in colonial America on the eve of the Revolution. In slightly different form, the maxim appeared in Coke's report of Doctor Bonham's Case, cited by James Otis in the 1761 Massachusetts Writs of Assistance Case that began the constitutional argument for Independence: “when an Act of Parliament is against Common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the Common Law will control it, and adjudge such Act to be void.” Alexander Hamilton references neither Bonham's Case nor Otis's argument in Federalist No. 78, where he develops the reasoning behind judicial review of legislation, nor is either of the cases mentioned in John Marshall's opinion in Marbury v. Madison. But both insist on the power of courts to void legislation repugnant to the Constitution as a matter of simple logic: Hamilton writes of “the nature and reason of the thing,” and Marshall of the “theory … essentially attached to a written constitution.” There is little doubt that the recourse to “reasonableness” in the judicial evaluation of regulatory legislation in the nineteenth century draws upon the legacy of this now-ancient maxim, nor perhaps that the “rational relation” test of the twentieth century is a modification of that tradition, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 2007
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7. Astell on Marriage, Patriarchalism and Contractarianism.
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Springborg, Patricia
- Abstract
The Marriage Contract–Social Contract Analogue Debate over the reception of Locke's anonymously published Two Treatises of Government (1690) has never given Astell her due. Her argument, in the first edition of Reflections upon Marriage (1700), that the very men who press for liberty in the public sphere are the first to exempt themselves from constraints on the exercise of their power at home, is an important anticipation of the argument mounted against the social contract theory of ‘Great L–k in his Two Discourses of Government’ by Charles Leslie in 1703. It is an argument that Astell develops in high style in her famous 1706 Preface to Reflections upon Marriage. Not only is her critique more trenchant than that of Leslie, published in the Supplement to his The New Association, Part II of 1703, but it is earlier on two counts, having been introduced not only in the body of the text of Reflections upon Marriage as early as 1700, but also implicit in A Serious Proposal, Part II, as we have seen. Introduction of the argument by Astell as early as 1697 has not been previously noticed. Nor has any account been taken of her bitter pleading in A Fair Way with the Dissenters and Their Patrons of 1704 against Leslie's getting credit for her earlier pamphlet of that year, Moderation Truly Stated, evidence enough, were any needed, that women who had to publish anonymously in her age could be plagiarized at will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 2005
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8. Astell, Drake, Education, Epistemology and the Serious Proposal.
- Author
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Springborg, Patricia
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A Serious Proposal, Text and Context Astell's educational work, a Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, brought her to greater public notice. Published in 1694, it is one of the most important and neglected in a long series of works advocating the establishment of educational academies for women. Republished in 1695, its reception was sufficiently controversial to cause Astell to respond with a lengthy sequel, A Serious Proposal, Part II (1697). Her project, set out in the first part of the Proposal, was to establish a religious community for ‘Ladies of Quality’ funded by the dowries they brought with them and monies earned by founding a school. Of all of Astell's works, this one has the most complicated textual history. For when in 1694 Astell had completed the first part of A Serious Proposal, the work, ironically, was taken for that of Damaris Masham, Locke's companion, as typical of what might be expected of the daughter of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth. In fact, Astell's Proposal, together with the Astell–Norris correspondence, attracted a fierce response from Lady Masham in Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1695), to which Astell in turn responded without mentioning Masham by name – if she was even aware of her authorship – in A Serious Proposal, Part II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 2005
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9. Hobbes’s Political Philosophy I: Man and Morality
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Stauffer, Devin, author
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- 2018
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10. Politički realizam i anarhija u međunarodnim odnosima.
- Author
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JOLIĆ, TVRTKO
- Subjects
REALISM ,DEBATE ,INTERNATIONAL relations ,ETHICS ,JUSTICE ,DILEMMA - Abstract
Copyright of Prolegomena: Journal of Philosophy is the property of Society for the Advancement of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...
- Published
- 2011
11. The philosophical context.
- Author
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Hole, Robert
- Abstract
If it is true, as has been suggested, that even John Locke began with his conclusions, then worked out arguments to support them, it would not be surprising if lesser thinkers did the same. The fact that some of Filmer's theories had been refuted by Locke, and some of Locke's by Hume, was irrelevant to men who sought philosophical arguments to support their political convictions. The reasons men held the convictions they did depended more upon the intellectual and social experiences and backgrounds of individuals than any rigorous or logical thought. It is more likely to be explained by some process of intellectual prosopography than one of philosophical analysis. Yet part of any individual intellectual biography was the current intellectual climate, the bag and baggage of ideas. In this period, as in most others, few ideas in current popular use were new, though men were aware of the new way of thinking and questioning in Enlightenment France. The traditional British debate ranging between patriarchalist and contractarian justifications of government remained an important source from which arguments, supporting whatever prejudices a man held, could be selected. It is, finally, impossible to say how far such ideas influenced men's opinions and how far they merely reinforced existing convictions. What is certain is that their influence was neither precise, rigorous nor straightforward, for most men did not think in such ways. Yet, clearly, philosophical ideas did influence men's political thought in broad, general terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1989
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12. Case study II: Samuel Horsley.
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Hole, Robert
- Abstract
Samuel Horsley was the son of a lecturer at St Martin-in-the-Fields and the grandson of a principal of Edinburgh University. He was a student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and a tutor at Christ Church, Oxford. An enthusiastic Greek scholar, he took pleasure in discussing a range of authors, especially Thucydides, with his son. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and a keen student of mathematics. From 1779 to 1785 he edited the works of Sir Isaac Newton, although it was later alleged that he overlooked, possibly destroyed, a ‘cart-load’ of papers on religious subjects which showed Newton to be Unitarian in faith. Horsley, a great trinitarian champion, probably regarded these as unfit for publication. He became Archdeacon of St Albans in 1781 and a prebendary of Gloucester in 1787. Horsley was an enthusiastic supporter of Pitt the Younger, to whom he owed his elevation to the episcopate in 1788 as Bishop of St David's. He spoke and voted for the government in the House of Lords and strongly supported Pitt's war effort and the need to finance it. He enjoyed some modest preferment, becoming Bishop of Rochester in 1793 and of St Asaph in 1802. He combined a staunch conservatism in both social and political concepts, with a genuine Christian faith and concern for the well-being of the church. He was perceptive enough to be aware of the exigencies of the changing situation and to make the necessary adjustments in the general tenor of his argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1989
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13. Social theory and the nature of man.
- Author
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Hole, Robert
- Abstract
Although the arguments were not new, the French Revolution led the English increasingly to consider social theory and the religious base of their society. Religious arguments could be used both to validate the social order and to teach men in every class the duties necessary to maintain it. It could cement the unity of the community both in a local and in a national sense, and it could impose restraints and sanctions on unregenerate man and so order his social behaviour. The social hierarchy Edmund Burke was both the apostle and the prophet of social theory in this sense. Most in advance of his contemporaries was the centrality of the role of religion as a restraining and reconciling agent in society which he outlined in his Reflections. This concentration and emphasis was rarely found in other writers before 1793. Rather more of his contemporaries echoed his vision and defence of a divinely ordained social hierarchy which he produced in response to disputes in the Whig party in 1790–1 when he was anxious to establish that his interpretation, rather than that of Fox, was in the true Whig tradition. But this also did not become commonplace until 1793–4. Burke assumed that all except the Jacobins accepted that God gave men their station in society and that, being placed in that rank by divine not human will, they were intended to fulfil the role assigned them. He assumed that men consented to these social and civil obligations because they arose from the ‘predisposed order of things'. That order involved a complex, social and economic hierarchy which should not be queried, for to doubt it would be to question God's wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1989
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14. Political theory and the rights of man.
- Author
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Hole, Robert
- Abstract
Political obligation Of all the elements in the traditional political-constitutional-philosophical style of argument the theme of political obligation was most firmly fixed in scripture and theology. Hardly surprisingly, therefore, it was the issue most discussed in this sphere between 1789 and 1804, though that discussion was mostly focussed in the earlier part of that period. The nature of that obligation continued to be interpreted in a variety of ways. The Church of England The Dean of Canterbury, George Horne, delivered from the pulpit of his cathedral church, on 25 October 1789, a classic restatement of the establishment position. Citing the traditional texts from SS Peter and Paul, he asserted that the Bible made clear that ‘the law of God enjoins obedience to every government settled according to the constitution of the country in which it subsists'. Horne proceeded to argue a case much closer to the balanced episcopal view than he had earlier in his career; though not yet in the Court Whig tradition, at least he was less obviously an unreconstituted patriarchalist. Men did have rights and need not submit unconditionally to government, but those rights were clearly expressed in the laws and constitution of the country. Horne thus distanced himself from his friend William Jones of Nayland, who had delivered a passionately pro-royalist sermon from the same pulpit a month earlier. He had denounced the French roundly and asserted the divine preference was for royal government. So the paths of the highchurch patriarchalists diverged. Horne's adoption of the more balanced and reasoned orthodox view led him eighteen months later to the Bishopric of Norwich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1989
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15. Locke's influence.
- Abstract
John Locke is the most influential philosopher of modern times. His Essay initiated the vigorous and lasting philosophical tradition that is known as British empiricism, but Locke's importance reaches far beyond the limits of what has since his time become recognized as the professional discipline of philosophy. His influence in the history of thought, on the way we think about ourselves and our relations to the world we live in, to God, nature and society, has been immense. His great message was to set us free from the burden of tradition and authority, both in theology and knowledge, by showing that the entire grounds of our right conduct in the world can be secured by the experience we may gain by the innate faculties and powers we are born with. God “commands what reason does” (W VII: n ) are the words that best reveal the tenor and unity of Locke's thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1994
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16. Locke's political philosophy.
- Abstract
Locke's political philosophy has generally been presented and assessed in terms of certain conclusions drawn from a few basic premises. Since Locke's political theory was not constructed according to the presuppositions of analytical philosophy, such an interpretive approach to his political thought seems better designed to portray Locke as an inconsistent or unclear thinker than to provide the reader of the Two Treatises of Government with an understanding of what Locke was attempting to do in writing that work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1994
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17. Liberty and natural law.
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Tully, James
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Part one is an analysis of Locke's concept of natural and civil liberty in the Two treatises. His account of liberty in the Essay is interpreted within the framework laid down in the Two treatises. I continue to believe that this early interpretation of natural and civil liberty is substantially correct and crucially important for understanding the formation of the concept of civil society or ‘public sphere’ in which citizens actively judge the policies of government in light of the public good. Whereas Hobbes and the absolutists argue that citizens alienate their independent political judgement as a condition of subjection, civic humanists uphold independent political judgement but tend to restrict its exercise to those directly engaged in government. Locke, in contrast to both, grants to citizens not in government the right to discuss and judge their governors in public, to dissent, and, if necessary, resist, when they transgress the public good. However, as I worked on chapter 6 I came to see that the interpretation of Locke's natural law as ‘rationalist’ rather than ‘voluntarist’ was mistaken. I took Hobbes' extreme form of moral and legal voluntarism as a benchmark and assumed that any theory short of that was rationalist. But it became clear that Locke developed his theory of natural law within an intellectual context set by Pufendorf of ‘mitigated’ voluntarism in which the creation of the world is purely contingent, as in all forms of voluntarism, yet once it is created certain unalterable and rational rules of human conduct follow that god ordinarily binds himself to obey, as in rationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1993
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18. Smith's moral theory.
- Author
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Haakonssen, Knud
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Hume and Smith on sympathy Turning from Hume's major philosophical work, the Treatise, to that of Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is a somewhat confusing experience. On the one hand there are all the similarities in the problems dealt with and the theories proposed, in the criticisms and alignments of predecessors, and there are the recurring, more or less clear references to Hume himself. On the other hand there is a significant change in the tone and style of the discourse. While one could say that Hume is constructing an abstract theory with its own language, and trying to accommodate common experiences and their linguistic expressions within it, Smith is trying to accommodate an abstract theory within the conceptual framework of ordinary language – or at least with a minimal stretching of it. And this is presumably one of the reasons why Hume scholars find it difficult to see much profundity in Smith, and why Smith scholars may tend to think that Hume's profundity was bought at the cost of empirical content and relevance. Nor is the difference confined to language and style. For it is precisely Smith's complaint against Hume that his theory of morals was a philosopher's construction which did not catch human morality as it is – a complaint which we shall have occasion for returning to in the present chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1981
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19. Hume's theory of justice.
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Haakonssen, Knud
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One theory or two? When Hume refused to follow Francis Hutcheson's advice to preach morality at the same time as he explored its foundations, he clearly implied that his task was a factual and descriptive one. But when he added that his own ‘Metaphysician may be very helpful to a Moralist’, we can take it that he was aware of the principle that ‘ought implies can’, and that his view of the ‘cans’ was highly relevant for what view one should take of the ‘oughts’. The roots of the latter are given us by nature in the form of the activating forces in our life, as passions. In this sense the foundation of morality is private and subjective. And yet morality as such is something public and objective: it is that which binds people together and makes a society possible, and in this function it is dependent upon the existence of a common moral language. Hume's task in his moral philosophy is, therefore, completely analogous to his task in epistemology: to explain how a common world is created out of private and subjective elements. For, as he expresses it, ‘'twere impossible we cou'd ever make use of language, or communicate our sentiments to one another, did we not correct the momentary appearances of things, and overlook our present situation’; fortunately, ‘Such corrections are common with regard to all the senses’ (T. 582; my italics). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 1981
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20. KANT'S PROJECT OF PERPETUAL PACIFICATION.
- Author
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Rasch, William
- Subjects
LAW & ethics ,ONTOLOGY ,PEACE - Abstract
Richard Tuck locates a conundrum in the Hobbesian world view. Whereas the nation-state is desired to effect the pacification of the domestic sphere, a world state and the promise of global pacification is feared. Kant's strong program for perpetual peace is presented as a moral imperative to establish through legal means a world republic based on reason and individual autonomy. Kant emphasizes the empirical impossibility of a world republic and hence advocates the weaker program of a world federation of states. This essay argues not the empirical but the logical impossibility of Kant's strong program and by extension any program of perpetual peace that claims to be essentially different from `mere' peace as truce. In so doing this essay distinguishes between political theory based on the assumption of the ontological priority of peace and political theory based on the assumption of the ontological priority of violence and argues for the necessity of thinking the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...
- Published
- 2008
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21. Mental Alienation and African Identity: Exploring Historical Perspectives in Response to the Crises of African Societies
- Author
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Tayo Raymond Ezekiel Eegunlusi
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,050301 education ,Identity (social science) ,Alienation ,Environmental ethics ,Morality ,Colonialism ,0506 political science ,Social order ,Dignity ,Honesty ,050602 political science & public administration ,Sociology ,State of nature ,Social science ,0503 education ,media_common - Abstract
This paper argues that the colonially-motivated alienation of the African mind, which plays a major role in the moral crisis, corruption, war and anarchy on the African continent, makes the possibility of a true African identity uncertain. Writers often premise African identity on historical, cultural and psychological factors but these factors now appear to be weak constituents of this identity because of severe crisis facing the moral and communitarian foundations on which this identity rests. The present problem of the African state is dual-natured. First is that her rich moral heritage of dignity, discipline, diligence, faithfulness, honesty and sound integrity is being eroded. Second is that the spate of intolerance sweeping across some parts of Africa, resulting from unmitigated acceptance of alien western doctrines inappropriate for her culture, grossly infests her systems with a high level of intolerance and anarchy capable of making her social order like Hobbes’ state of nature in which human life is “nasty, brutish and short.” These situations, worst still, have horridly affected the meaningful and constructive development of the continent and rank her people among the poorest in the world, despite her rich natural and human resources. Using the critical and argumentative methods of empirical, conceptual and historical analysis, this paper explores the rich moral background of the Yorubas, among other cultures, as case study, and urges a return to the moral ideals that once dominated and characterized African states. more...
- Published
- 2017
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22. Pufendorf's Secular Ethics
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Doug Magendanz
- Subjects
Power (social and political) ,Sovereignty ,Political science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Political ethics ,Secular ethics ,State of nature ,Morality ,media_common ,Law and economics - Abstract
This paper provides a preliminary assessment the role of law and power in Samuel Pufendorf’s secular ethics. Pufendorf designed his ethics for “this life”, and grounded morality within a geometric network of obligations that connected the sovereign to the actors of the sovereign’s office. One of the most interesting aspects of Pufendorf’s ethics is how he links freedom and power. We are totally free in the state of nature, yet powerless. We have power as citizens, but limited freedom. Comparison is made with the political ethics of John Rawls. more...
- Published
- 2019
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23. The State of Nature in The Elements
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Silviya Lechner
- Subjects
Natural law ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Passions ,Context (language use) ,Obligation ,State of nature ,Covenant ,Morality ,Construct (philosophy) ,Epistemology ,media_common - Abstract
Hobbes specialists have been divided over the question whether Hobbes’s major works on morality, law, and politics—The Elements, De Cive, and Leviathan—constitute a unity or whether there are philosophically significant discontinuities. This book makes a case for a discontinuous reading. The hypothesis is that the analysis in The Elements and De Cive is markedly distinct from that in Leviathan. The present chapter introduces the central elements that comprise the analytical construct of a state of nature in The Elements: the passions, the right of nature, and the laws of nature, treating obligation, covenant, and law as background considerations necessary to elucidate these more central concerns. The subsequent chapters will examine this construct in the context of De Cive and Leviathan. more...
- Published
- 2019
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24. Authority and the Problem of Political Philosophy
- Author
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Silviya Lechner
- Subjects
Politics ,State (polity) ,Argument ,media_common.quotation_subject ,State of nature ,Sociology ,Political philosophy ,Morality ,Leviathan ,Relation (history of concept) ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
The fundamental problem of political philosophy—Why should there be a state?—supposes both a definition of the state and an argument for its justification. The central thesis of this book is that Hobbes formulates this problem as a relation between authority and anarchy—or what Hobbes calls a ‘state of nature’—and not between authority and some more basic moral principles. This latter approach to state justification is endorsed by the majority of contemporary political philosophers. This chapter will explicate these two alternative approaches by focussing on the concept of authority. This will prepare the ground for discussing the complex set of arguments on the state of nature that Hobbes presents in his major writings on morality and politics: The Elements, De Cive, and Leviathan. more...
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
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25. A Critique of Hobbes’s State of Nature
- Author
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Bailey D. Villarreal
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,General Engineering ,Appeal ,General Earth and Planetary Sciences ,Empathy ,Sociology ,State of nature ,Morality ,Phenomenology (psychology) ,General Environmental Science ,Epistemology ,media_common - Abstract
In this essay, I analyze Hobbes’s formulation of what a state of nature would be like and assess whether or not that formulation is compelling. In doing this, I review his three principal reasons for conflict within the state of nature. I argue that his mechanistic reduction of human behavior and motivation is over-generalized and focus on the emphasis he places on instrumental power. I then review his description of zero-sum mentality in relation to trust between individuals and attempt to articulate a phenomenology of trust that appreciates the complexity of human interactions. Finally, I assess the validity of Hobbes’s claim that moral consensus would cease to exist in a state of nature in the absence of a state apparatus. I attempt to refute his reasoning by making an appeal to human empathy and its moral dimensions in relation to glory-seeking behavior that Hobbes stipulates. more...
- Published
- 2020
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26. Montesquieu’s Story of the Troglodytes: Its Background, Meaning, and Significance
- Author
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Allessandro S. Crisafulli
- Subjects
education.field_of_study ,Virtue ,Allegory ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Population ,Environmental ethics ,Public good ,Morality ,Aesthetics ,Justice (virtue) ,Sociology ,Meaning (existential) ,State of nature ,education ,media_common - Abstract
The story of the Troglodytes is an allegory in which Baron de Montesquieu, refuting Hobbes's conception of the state of nature and of the origin of society, shows that in the state of nature men were, moral and virtuous since they were endowed with a natural sense of justice and were benevolent and kind in the sense that they sought primarily the public good and not their own. They remained in the state of nature until their natural virtue or goodness was affected by the emergence of the selfish side of their nature through the manifestation of ambition and the desires for wealth and luxury. Montesquieu is not clear on how these motives originated, but the implication is that the growth of population and economic progress were inevitable factors. The result was that these selfish motives of conduct replaced the preponderantly unselfish motivation in natural virtue and led to a loss of equality, liberty, and morality. more...
- Published
- 2017
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27. Spinoza and International Law: Bleak Take on Self-Help or a Strong Belief in Humanity?
- Author
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Gökhan Güneysu
- Subjects
International relations ,Natural law ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Spinoza,Public International Law,International Legal Theory ,Uluslararası hukuk ,International law ,Morality ,Uluslararası hukuk kuramı ,Solidarity ,Public international law ,Politics ,Social ,State (polity) ,Political science ,Law ,Economics ,State of nature ,Spinoza ,Sosyal ,Law and economics ,media_common ,International legal theory - Abstract
Spinoza foresees a state of nature among states, just like the one among human beings. Human beings, under this chaotic condition, are not bound by the contracts they have concluded, if these contracts have lost their utility. States, too, may cease to observe those international agreements, if obedience to these is not advantageous any more for the state concerned, or whenever there is a more advantageous alternative than those perks offered by the international agreement. These findings have led many scholars of International Relations and International Law to deem Spinoza as a thinker in the mold of Hobbes or the like, someone who allocates no place for morality in political affairs. Spinoza proves at times to be a stingier critic of morality than Hobbes, yet he still calls for cooperation on international fora. This he does by distancing himself from the rhetoric of natural law. International solidarity, according to him, will enable participating states to be more powerful and to enjoy more rights. Yet again, he does not set idealistic goals and just underlines the more advantageous state to be created owing to the establishment of such a peaceful cooperation. Spinoza, gerçek insanlar için öngördüğü doğal hali devletler için de öngörmektedir. Buna göre, faydalı olma süresi sona ermiş veya daha faydalı başka bir siyasi alternatifi ortaya çıkmış bir uluslararası andlaşma söz konusu devlet idarecileri tarafından uygulanmayabilir. Yani, Spinoza, en azından ilk bakışta ciddi bir keyfi davranma yetkisini karar alıcılara verir gibi görünmektedir. Bu yaklaşım Uluslararası ilişkiler ve hukuk uzmanlarını Spinoza’nın hukuki yükümlülükleri yok saydığı inancına götürmüştür. Bir anlamda bu çıkarımlar da doğrudur ancak Spinoza aslında doğal hal durumundaki devletler ile belli bir uluslararası örgütlenmeye katılmış devletler arasında önemli bir ayrım yapmaktadır. Tractatus Politicus’da Spinoza işbirliğine giden devletlerin aslında daha güçlü olduğuna işaret etmektedir. Spinoza uluslararası barışının kurulmasını salıklayan bir düşünür olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu salıklama herhangi bir yüksek idealizmden kaynaklanmamakta, bilakis devletlerin daha fazla güç kazanma yolu olarak görülmektedir. more...
- Published
- 2017
28. HOBBES AS A SOCIOBIOLOGIST. RETHINKING THE STATE OF (HUMAN) NATURE
- Author
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Darat G Nicole
- Subjects
Conflict ,media_common.quotation_subject ,B1-5802 ,Política ,Politics ,State (polity) ,Argument ,Sociobiology ,Sociobiologia ,Anachronism ,Obligation ,State of nature ,Contrato social ,Philosophy (General) ,Natureza humana ,media_common ,Hobbes ,Philosophy ,Interpretation (philosophy) ,Morality ,Human nature ,Epistemology ,Social contract ,Conflito - Abstract
In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring to the construction of human nature and its influence on the modulation of the state of nature and on the justification of authority and political obligation. So, Hobbes proceeds as a sociobiologist since he offers us a tale about the emergence of morality from where it didn't exist before and moves from there to a specific understanding of political authority. RESUMO No texto a seguir, pretendemos apresentar uma proposta de interpretação da obra de Hobbes a partir de sociobiologia. Apesar de poder chocar alguns em primeiro lugar como um anacronismo ou errado, ler o filósofo da Mamelsbury a partir de uma perspectiva sociobiológica pode lançar luz sobre alguns aspectos particulares do seu argumento, em especial os referentes à construção da natureza humana e sua influência sobre a modulação do estado de natureza e sobre a justificação da autoridade e obrigação política. Portanto, Hobbes procede como um sociobiólogo, já que ele nos oferece um conto sobre o surgimento da moralidade de onde ela não existia antes e se move de lá para uma compreensão específica da autoridade política. more...
- Published
- 2017
29. Introduction: Angela Carter’s (De)Philosophising Business
- Author
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Heidi Yeandle
- Subjects
History ,Civilization ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Western thought ,Performance art ,Western philosophy ,State of nature ,Morality ,Rene descartes ,Classics ,media_common ,Law and economics - Abstract
Yeandle provides an overview of her discussion of Angela Carter’s engagement with Western philosophy, including Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle, Immanuel Kant and the Marquis de Sade. The contents of the Angela Carter Papers Collection, an archive of Carter’s research journals which has become available at the British Library, is central to Yeandle’s analysis. Discussing the implications of Carter’s engagement with this male-dominated discipline, the chapter argues that Carter is (de)philosophising Western thought. She is philosophising on the same ideas as her male predecessors, exploring notions of reality, morality and the state of nature, but Carter deconstructs—or dephilosophises—the arguments put forward by established Western thinkers, challenging their influence on Western civilisation. more...
- Published
- 2016
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30. Just War, Regular War, and Perpetual Peace
- Author
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Arthur Ripstein
- Subjects
050502 law ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Veto ,Opposition (politics) ,Doctrine ,06 humanities and the arts ,Modern philosophy ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Morality ,Philosophy ,Just war theory ,Perpetual peace ,Political science ,Law ,060302 philosophy ,State of nature ,0505 law ,media_common - Abstract
Kant’s Doctrine of Right concludes with the claim that “morally practical reason pronounces an irresistible veto: there is to be no war, neither war between you and me in the state of nature nor war between us as states, which, although they are internally in a lawful condition, are still externally (in relation to one another) in a lawless condition; for war is not the way in which everyone should seek his rights.” This opposition to war is paired with a discussion of right in war, with respect to each of going to war, the conduct of war, and the behaviour of the victorious party after a war. My aim in this paper is to explain how Kant can have a conception of right in war, against the background of his more general view that war is by its nature barbaric and to be repudiated entirely. Right cannot be decided by war, but it is possible to “find a right in a condition of war,” if we suppose it can decide a dispute, and so in another sense resolve a question of right. The morality appropriate to war reflects the fact that it resolves a dispute independently of it merits. It is this morality, rather than the restriction of war’s effects, that provides the appropriate standard for evaluating the conduct of war; it also provides the only basis for law governing war. more...
- Published
- 2016
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31. Was Control of the Press Inevitable?
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Edoardo Tortarolo
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Printing press ,Power (social and political) ,Social contract ,Politics ,law ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Political science ,Civil authority ,State of nature ,Principle of legality ,Morality ,law.invention ,media_common - Abstract
In the middle of the seventeenth century, a few years apart, the two pre-eminent political philosophers in Europe worked out opposing theories of the proper course of action for political power-holders in their dealings with the written word. Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza held contrasting views of the nature of communication between human beings which were based on starkly different analyses of society and the civil power. In fact their shared assumption that in the state of nature there could be neither morality nor legality, developed in divergent directions. more...
- Published
- 2016
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32. Schiller's Idea of Aesthetic State
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Subramaniam Chandran
- Subjects
State (polity) ,Aesthetics ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Law ,Philosophy ,Rationality ,State of nature ,Political freedom ,Morality ,The arts ,Order (virtue) ,media_common - Abstract
Man must pass through the aesthetic condition from the merely physical in order to reach the rational or moral, Schiller says. Schiller developed aesthetics to perfect all the works of arts of man and for the construction of true political freedom. He expanded aesthetics into a comprehensive system of diverse intellectual faculties, incorporating Kant’s notion of judgment together with the elements derived from Rousseau. Schiller’s deepest concern is not with law or reason or morality in themselves, but with human freedom through an aesthetic approach. more...
- Published
- 2016
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33. Democratic Politics between the Market and the Forum
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Ben Saunders
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Sociology and Political Science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Morality ,Economic Justice ,Democracy ,Common good ,Politics ,Law ,Political Science and International Relations ,Self-interest ,Consumer sovereignty ,State of nature ,Sociology ,media_common ,Law and economics - Abstract
Economic analyses of democracy often draw an analogy between democratic procedures and the ‘consumer sovereignty’ of the marketplace. In contrast, normative ideals of democracy often propose that voters should aim at the common good or justice. It is suggested that there is a fundamental difference between the appropriate norms of the market, in which self-interest is permitted, and those of the political forum, in which self-interest is prohibited. These ideals are apt, however, to invite charges of utopianism. While I accept that morality may sometimes be demanding, my aim in this article is to argue that the appropriate norms of the democratic forum are not as demanding as sometimes suggested; the market/forum contrast is often exaggerated. The market is not a state of nature, so some moral constraints apply even there. More importantly, self-interest is allowed some place in the political arena, at least where justice or the common good is indeterminate. There is no need for agents to set aside their private interests entirely in the political arena. Thus, the ultimate guiding principles of the market and the forum are the same: agents are free to promote their self-interest within the constraints established by justice or the rights of other agents. It may be that these constraints are more restrictive in politics than in the marketplace, but the difference between the two arenas is one of degree rather than kind. Unless we think that even constrained pursuit of self-interest is too demanding, we have no reason to regard these norms as utopian. more...
- Published
- 2012
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34. Reason and Reciprocity in Hobbes's Political Philosophy: On Sharon Lloyd's: Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes
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Martinich
- Subjects
History ,Reciprocity (social and political philosophy) ,Sociology and Political Science ,Natural law ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Morality ,Mathematical proof ,Intellectual history ,Epistemology ,Political philosophy ,State of nature ,Element (criminal law) ,media_common - Abstract
Lloyd's book, Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, correctly stresses the deductive element in Hobbes's proofs of the laws of nature. She believes that “the principle of reciprocity” is the key to these proofs. This principle is effective in getting ego-centric people to recognize moral laws and their moral obligations. However, it is not, I argue, the basic principle Hobbes uses to derive the laws of nature, from definitions. The principle of reason, which dictates that all similar cases be treated similarly, is. It is important not to diminish the centrality of reason for Hobbes because it is essential to understanding his reply to “the fool” and understanding why the state of nature cannot be a continuum. more...
- Published
- 2010
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35. Hobbes's Voluntarist Theory of Morals
- Author
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Martin T. Harvey
- Subjects
History ,Sociology and Political Science ,Natural law ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Subject (philosophy) ,Morality ,Epistemology ,Reading (process) ,State of nature ,Obligation ,Voluntarism (action) ,Naturalism ,media_common - Abstract
Two interpretations of Hobbes's theory of morals dominate the subject: the Egoistic Reading (ER) and the Naturalist Reading (NR). According to ER, all of Hobbes's moral concepts are self-interested at their core. According to NR, Hobbes's Laws of Nature set down genuine moral obligations/virtues both inside of the state of nature and out. This article rejects both of these interpretations in favor of a Voluntarist Reading (VR). On this reading, morality is an artifact of human endeavor, specifically covenanting. Unlike both ER and NR, VR takes seriously Hobbes's claim that there is “no obligation on any man which ariseth not from some act of his own”. more...
- Published
- 2009
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36. Kant’s Project of Perpetual Pacification
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William Rasch
- Subjects
State (polity) ,Perpetual peace ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Law ,Political philosophy ,Sociology ,State of nature ,Impossibility ,Morality ,World view ,media_common ,Moral imperative - Abstract
Richard Tuck locates a conundrum in the Hobbesian world view. Whereas the nation-state is desired to effect the pacification of the domestic sphere, a world state and the promise of global pacification is feared. Kant’s strong program for perpetual peace is presented as a moral imperative to establish through legal means a world republic based on reason and individual autonomy. Kant emphasizes the empirical impossibility of a world republic and hence advocates the weaker program of a world federation of states. This essay argues not the empirical but the logical impossibility of Kant’s strong program and by extension any program of perpetual peace that claims to be essentially different from ‘mere’ peace as truce. In so doing this essay distinguishes between political theory based on the assumption of the ontological priority of peace and political theory based on the assumption of the ontological priority of violence and argues for the necessity of thinking the latter. more...
- Published
- 2008
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37. Expression of an international social contract
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Thomas Weatherall
- Subjects
Civil society ,Social contract ,Expression (architecture) ,Law ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Political science ,Peremptory norm ,State of nature ,Morality ,Categorical imperative ,media_common ,Public international law - Published
- 2015
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38. War, Cinema, and Moral Anxiety
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Mark J. Lacy
- Subjects
Sociology and Political Science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Modernity ,Rationality ,Morality ,Postmodernism ,Power (social and political) ,Barbarism ,Aesthetics ,Law ,Political Science and International Relations ,Moral responsibility ,State of nature ,Sociology ,media_common - Abstract
In modern war, one individual can cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. He can do so by pushing a button; he may not feel the emotional impact of what he is doing, since he does not see, does not know the people that he kills; it is almost as if his act of pushing the button and their death had no real connection. The same man would probably be incapable of even slapping, not to speak of killing, a helpless person. In the latter case, the concrete situation arouses in him a conscience reaction common to all normal men; in the former there is no such reaction, because the act and his object are alienated from the doer, his act is not his any more, but has, so to speak, a life and responsibility of its own. --Erich Fromm, The Sane Society And yet it is moral anxiety that provides the only substance the moral self could ever have.... This uncertainty with no exit is precisely the foundation of morality. One recognizes morality by its gnawing sense of unfulfllledness, by its endemic dissatisfaction with itself.--Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics One of the most interesting developments in critical social theory has been a concern with what is best described as a "sociology of morality." Zygmunt Bauman has written prolifically on the techniques used for producing moral indifference, arguing, in Modernity and the Holocaust, that far from being an act of primitive barbarity, the violence of the Holocaust was a product of modern forms of "efficient" organization. From Bauman's perspective, the production line of death was an outcome of the instrumental rationality that modern forms of bureaucracy make possible. It was necessary, he suggests, for the organizers of the Holocaust to find ways to distance those carrying out the violence from the victims--to structure the events so that there was no room for "eruptions" of moral responsibility: It was necessary to distance the participants from the "face" of the victim, constructing them as "objects" of control, manipulation, and extermination. The violence was reduced to a series of tasks where responsibility was floated among the individuals that took part. (2) A similar point has been made by Paul Virilio in his writings on war and technology, where he argues that the ethical issue we need to address is the "derealization of military engagement." (3) Similarly, James Der Derian has argued that virtual war is designed to distance not only the pilots and strategists from the reality of death that they are orchestrating, but also to distance the citizenry back home from the suffering that is being carried out under the banner of virtuous war: "Post Vietnam, the U.S. has made many digital advances; public announcements of enemy body counts is not one of them." (4) The point being made by Bauman, Virilio, and Der Derian is not that in the face of proximity to suffering, humans will necessarily respond with acts of moral responsibility. Der Derian suggests that we also need to consider the role of trauma in warfare: We may have proximity, but we may still remain distanced from the acts we witness (or take part in). (5) Bauman argues that even in recent situations that are constructed as acts of primitive "ethnic" and "face-to-face" barbarity (with Bosnia as an example), there is a dependence on modern forms of organization (propaganda; organization through the use of mobile phones). It is not the case that barbarism on a large scale erupts from a postmodern "state of nature," from the edges of globalization. (6) What is being asserted here is that distancing populations and participants from the consequences of violence makes it easier to make people indifferent; it has a narcotic effect--what Bauman describes in terms of a "moral sleeping pill." Virilio and Der Derian have both written on the relationship between cinema and war, with Derian specifically tracing the emergence of MIME-NET (the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network), a network of power that works to legitimate developments in military technology and broader foreign-policy objectives. … more...
- Published
- 2003
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39. Xunzi's Systematic Critique of Mencius
- Author
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Kim-chong Chong
- Subjects
Philosophy ,Transformative learning ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Possession (linguistics) ,Construal level theory ,State of nature ,Morality ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
I offer what I think is a more precise account of Xunzi’s critique of Mencius’ position. The account is based on an elaboration of the distinction that Xunzi makes in the ‘‘Xing e pian’’ (Nature is evil) between ke yi (capacity) and neng (ability). While others have noted this distinction, no one has sufficiently appreciated the role that it plays in making Xunzi’s critique of Mencius more systematic and substantive than it is usually thought to be. 3 It will help the reader to understand the analysis that follows if I introduce my reading of Xunzi’s position first. According to Xunzi, Mencius assumes a state of nature wherein human beings have moral resources that they can voluntarily call upon at any time. This assumption is based on certain organic analogies; for example, the capacity of the eyes to see at the same time constitutes (barring any accident or interference) the ability to see. Xunzi denies the application of this organic construal to the ability to act morally by making the distinction between having a capacity and being able to be or to do something. Thus, the ability to be a sage depends in the first place on the fact that there is a rationale to morality that can be learned, as well as the possession of cognitive and instrumental capacities that would allow someone to learn this rationale. However, these do not necessarily translate into the ability on the part of the individual to be a sage. This is because she might not voluntarily work on the capacities that she possesses, and neither can she be forced to. Furthermore, this unwillingness may be due to certain qualities of character that may not dispose her to exert herself toward the goal of being a sage. The transformative rationale of the rites is something that the sages cognize dan dworke dat .The ywer eabl et otransfor mthemselve san dinstitut eprocesses to influence others. Even though ordinary persons, too, have the basic capacities, they do not have the same abilities as the sages to transform themselves, but require the force of institutions to curb their excesses and to mold their characters. Tal ko fth e“capacity” t ob ea sag emakes on eincline dt othin ktha tXunzi’s position is not very different from that of Mencius, since Mencius, too, claims the necessity of working at the moral ‘‘sprouts’’ that everyone is said to possess. Indeed, Xunzi is aware of the question that if (as he claims) nature is ‘‘evil,’’ how more...
- Published
- 2003
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40. The Transition from War to Peace: Analysis from the Philosophy of History of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottfried Herder
- Author
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Juan Sebastian García Acevedo and Alejandra Turbay Fontalvo
- Subjects
peace ,Context (language use) ,legality ,philosophy of history ,lcsh:Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence ,filosofía de la historia ,State of nature ,war ,guerr ,Johann Gottfried Herder ,state of nature ,Philosophy of history ,transición ,Philosophy ,paz ,Immanuel Kant ,transition ,estado de naturaleza ,guerra ,General Medicine ,K1-7720 ,morality ,libertad ,Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence ,lcsh:K1-7720 ,moralidad ,liberty ,legalidad ,Humanities - Abstract
espanolCuando una nacion atraviesa la transicion de un estado de guerra a la paz surgen unos cambios a nivel social, politico y juridico. El hombre se ve en la necesidad de crear un mecanismo que impida la repeticion de las hostilidades y garantice el mantenimiento de la paz. El periodo de la Ilustracion aparece como un antecedente importantisimo, en el que la transicion del Estado Absolutista al Estado de Derecho hizo que el hombre cambiara toda la tradicion juridica existente e instaurara un nuevo sistema que permitiera el goce efectivo de los derechos adquiridos. Immanuel Kant y Johann Herder desarrollaron sus obras en el contexto de la Ilustracion y, a traves de la Filosofia de la Historia, crearon un referente importante para el analisis de la guerra como estado de naturaleza y la paz -que debe ser instaurada y protegida por el hombre- como principal logro de la sociedad civil. Este trabajo pretende analizar tales teorias y traerlas al contexto del siglo XXI. EnglishWhen a nation goes through the transition from a state of war to peace some changes to social, political and legal arise. The man is the need to create a mechanism to prevent the recurrence of hostilities and ensure the maintenance of peace. The period of the Enlightenment appears as an important precedent, in which the transition from absolutist state the rule of law caused the man to change all existing legal tradition and establish a new system that would allow the effective enjoyment of acquired rights. Immanuel Kant and Johann Herder developed his works in the context of the Enlightenment and, through the philosophy of history, created an important reference for the analysis of war as a state of nature and peace which must be instituted and protected by the man as the main achievement of civil society. This paper analyzes such theories and bringing them to the context of XXI century. more...
- Published
- 2014
41. Hybridity and Ethics in Chateaubriand's Atala
- Author
-
Claudia Moscovici
- Subjects
Literature ,Virtue ,Civilization ,Literature and Literary Theory ,business.industry ,Amorality ,Noble savage ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Morality ,Aesthetics ,Good and evil ,State of nature ,business ,Romanticism ,media_common - Abstract
The figure of the noble savage constitutes one of the defining features of French Romanticism. As contemporary criticism points out, this figure is riddled with ambivalence. While savage cultures may epitomize an innocent state of nature by way of contrast to a dissolute Western civilization, they also represent a less developed social organization that makes Western societies appear superior by comparison. Rousseau's works perhaps best capture the philosophical ambivalence of early Romantic representations of savage cultures.(1) On the one hand, Rousseau praises the supposed moral innocence of the noble savage. He regards this figure as the origin of Western civilization before it became corrupted by private property and the greed, artifice, and despotic governments that developed as a result of it. On the other hand, Rousseau maintains, the noble savage cannot be considered either moral or immoral.(2) Rather than making ethical choices between good and evil, he is motivated by both positive (or other-regarding) and negative (or selfish) impulses.(3) As Rousseau indicates in Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite parmi les hommes (1755), only civilized man has the potential to function as an autonomous and group-oriented moral and political being who interacts on a par with other citizens in a republican society.(4) Consequently, Rousseau's seemingly paradoxical representation of the contrast between nature and civilization -- whereby he simultaneously praises and deprecates the noble savage -- depends largely upon a binary normative model. From one perspective, Rousseau's ethical vision may appear nuanced and even impartial. Both civilized and savage people are capable of positive and negative sentiments; both can engage in good and bad actions. From another perspective, however, it is clear that only civilized man can be judged good or evil; the noble savage is simply amoral. The true opposition established by Rousseau is therefore not, as it would seem, between the virtue of nature and the evil of culture or vice versa, but rather between the applicability of normative standards to culture and their irrelevance in nature. The notion of civilized man -- be he depicted as good, evil, or a mixture of both characteristics -- entails, quite literally, the negation of the amorality associated with the state of nature. Otherwise put, the savage represents the lack of morality. Because only the ethical status of civilized man matters, the noble savage acquires an admittedly instrumental function in Rousseau's works.(5) That is, the figure of noble savage is not an object of study in itself, but rather, as Rousseau himself indicates, a hypothetical model employed to imagine the origin of Western civilization and to identify errors in its moral development. While Rousseau may be the best known philosopher of the early Romantic dichotomy between nature and culture, Chateaubriand gives this distinction its most popular literary voice.(6) Unlike Rousseau, however, in his descriptions of the contrast between "l'homme sauvage" and "l'homme civilise" Chateaubriand is concerned with the moral status of both. He assumes that, whatever their differences may be, so-called civilized and primitive societies are not ethical opposites.(7) The recognition of all cultures as forms of civilization may be attributed, in part, to Chateaubriand's travels throughout the world. More specifically, in 1791 Chateaubriand visited North America. Upon his return to France, he wrote a travel narrative that he subsequently transformed into the novels Atala (1801) and Rene (1802).(8) Atala in particular, I will argue, challenges a representation of Western and Native American cultures as ethical opposites. While beginning Atala with the familiar contrast between savage nature and European culture, by the end of the novel Chateaubriand transforms this polarity into a more complex model of hybrid cultural identity. What does the concept of hybridity entail and how is it formed? … more...
- Published
- 2001
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42. Liberty as the Absence of Imposed Cost: The Libertarian Conception of Interpersonal Liberty
- Author
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J. C. Lester
- Subjects
Libertarianism ,Property (philosophy) ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Interpretation (philosophy) ,Negative liberty ,Genocide ,Morality ,Philosophy ,Law ,Private property ,State of nature ,Sociology ,Law and economics ,media_common - Abstract
This paper argues for a non-moral interpretation of the libertarian conception of interpersonal liberty as ‘the absence of imposed cost.’ In the event of a clash of imposed costs, observing such liberty entails ‘minimising imposed costs’. Three fundamental criticisms are examined: strictly interpreted, this would logically imply genocide in practice; it is impractically unclear and moralised; it could entail mob rule of some kind. Self-ownership and private property are then non-morally derived merely from applying this formula in a state of nature. Various subsidiary issues arise throughout. more...
- Published
- 1997
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43. A Multi-Stage Game Model of Morals by Agreement
- Author
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Joseph Heath
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,Maximization ,Disposition ,Rational agent ,Morality ,Agreement ,Philosophy ,Argument ,Ethnology ,Sociology ,State of nature ,Mathematical economics ,Mechanism (sociology) ,media_common - Abstract
If there is one aspect of David Gauthier's program for a contractualist morality that has been most sceptically received, it is his view that instrumentally rational agents would choose to adopt a disposition that would in turn constrain their future choices. Instead of remaining “straightforward maximizers” caught in a suboptimal state of nature, they would become “constrained maximizers” who could avoid prisoner's dilemmas (PDs) by engaging in conditional co-operation. Apart from the fact that Gauthier's entirely prescriptive orientation leads him to omit any specification of the mechanism through which this might be accomplished, serious doubts have been raised about the adequacy of the argument that he offers in support of adopting constrained maximization. more...
- Published
- 1996
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44. International ethics, community, and civic education
- Author
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Dale T. Snauwaert
- Subjects
International ethics ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Environmental ethics ,Universal law ,Morality ,Education ,Politics ,Communitarianism ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Sociology ,Education policy ,State of nature ,Comparative education ,Social science ,media_common - Abstract
The liberal-communitarian debate is a dispute about, among other things, the metaethical grounding of morality. The liberal posits that moral principle is cosmopolitan in the sense that it is free from the dictates and constraints of particular traditions: moral principle transcends community and is therefore universally applicable. In contrast, communitarians posit an ethic of association. They maintain that morality emerges out of, and is thus grounded in, the web of human relationships which constitute communal life. This is an ethic based upon custom rather than universal principle. From the perspective of communitarianism, civic education is contingent upon the specific social and political organization of the society in which it is situated. This contingency is recognized early on in the Western tradition, for example, by Isocrates and Aristotle who maintain that citizenship and civic education are expressions of the constitution (politeia) of the society. The politeia is not the formal juridical structure of the legal system of a society per se but rather the basic structure of values and customs which define its broader world view. Since the emergence of the European nation-state system, civic education has been couched in terms of the imperatives of national politeia. Although an international system has existed for centuries, this system has been conceived as an anarchy, analogous to a Hobbesian state of nature. As a consequence, the imperatives and ideals of civic education have been defined within the framework of national values and customs. more...
- Published
- 1995
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45. Chimerical ethics and flattering moralists
- Author
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Corey W. Dyck
- Subjects
Literature ,Virtue ,business.industry ,Kindness ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Morality ,Epistemology ,Christian ethics ,Honor ,Beauty ,Justice (virtue) ,State of nature ,business ,media_common - Published
- 2012
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46. The metaphysics of morals (1797)
- Author
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Allen W. Wood, Mary J. Gregor, and Immanuel Kant
- Subjects
Practical philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Law ,Intuition (Bergson) ,Metaphysics ,State of nature ,Sociology ,Philosophy education ,Morality ,Transcendental philosophy ,Eudaimonia ,Epistemology ,media_common - Published
- 2012
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47. Philosophy, Totality, and the Everyday
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Michael L. Morgan
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Normative ethics ,Self ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Alterity ,Morality ,Epistemology ,Phenomenology (philosophy) ,Idealism ,German idealism ,Intentionality ,Sophist ,Sensibility ,State of nature ,Sociology ,Theology ,Everyday life ,Naturalism ,Philosophy of religion ,Skepticism ,media_common - Abstract
PHILOSOPHY AND THE EVERYDAY Most often, when Levinas turns to the encounter with the face of the other in order to shed light on its objective or subjective side, he does so within the context of everyday life and ordinary experience. His accounts are abstract and metaphorical, but they arise out of everyday experiences of misery and suffering, of the orphan, the stranger, the poor, and the widow. Their biblical overtones notwithstanding, such figures are ones whom we meet in ordinary life. As we have pointed out, it is as if he is locating a dimension of experience largely hidden from view, obscured by our habits and ways of conducting affairs or distorted by culturally and historically grounded attitudes, as a reminder of the fundamental meaning of our humanity. The face is both in our lives and somehow not in them; it confronts us in ordinary life and yet also from outside it. The face is not a phenomenon, but rather, as Levinas comes to put it, an enigma , or riddle, a challenge to what is customary and accepted, and yet also in some ways a foundation. Philosophy reaches out and locates the face-to-face and describes and clarifies it, and hence philosophy arises at least in part for moral reasons, because clarification and articulation are needed. But philosophy is located in the everyday and always returns to it. One wonders, however, if and in what sense it really leaves it. more...
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- 2011
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48. Kant's Metaphysics of Morals: the history and significance of its deferral
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Manfred Kuehn
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Virtue ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Perfection ,Metaphysics ,State of nature ,Morality ,Eudaimonia ,Categorical imperative ,Morality and religion ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals appeared in 1797. The metaphysics of morals contains all the principles that "determine action and omission a priori and make them necessary". It will be "pure morality, which is not grounded on any anthropology. Kant's Groundwork clearly meant for an antecedent of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant had to promise that he would not publish on religious topics, but any Metaphysics of Morals had to include a discussion of the relations between morality and religion. This chapter divides Kant's deferment of the proposed Metaphysics of Morals into three periods, with the first one dating from 1762 to about 1770, the second one from 1770 to 1785, and the third period from 1785 to 1797. The lectures that were most relevant for Metaphysics of Morals were those on natural law, on ethics, and on anthropology. more...
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- 2011
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49. Politički realizam i anarhija u međunarodnim odnosima
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Tvrtko Jolić
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Hobbes ,međunarodni odnosi ,moral ,politički realizam ,prirodno stanje ,suradnja ,suverenitet ,teorija igara ,Cooperation ,game theories ,international relations ,morality ,political realism ,sovereignty ,state of nature - Abstract
U ovom radu kritički razmatram utjecajni argument u prilog političkog realizma. Prema ovom argumentu u međunarodnim odnosima, po analogiji s Hobbesovim prirodnim stanjem na individualnoj razini, vlada anarhija, zbog čega je državama neracionalno da poštuju načela morala i pravednosti, budući da ne postoji jamstvo da će ih druge države poštovati. Međutim, ova je analogija neodrživa zbog razlika koje postoje između djelatnika na međunarodnoj i onih na individualnoj razini. Razina nesigurnosti u međunarodnim odnosima je niža u usporedbi s nesigurnošću prirodnoga stanja, što omogućava da se uspostavi suradnja između država. Ovaj zaključak podupiru i uvidi iz teorije igara, posebice oni koji se oslanjanju na model višekratne zatvorenikove dileme., In this paper I critically examine an influential argument in favor of political realism. The argument claims that international relations, by analogy with Hobbes’s state of nature at the individual level, are governed by anarchy which makes it irrational for states to observe the principles of morality and justice since there are no guarantees that they will be observed by other states. However, this analogy is unsustainable due to the differences that exist between agents on the international and individual levels. Compared to the insecurity of the state of nature, the level of insecurity of international relations is lower, which makes it possible for co-operation between states to be established. This conclusion is additionally corroborated by insights of the game theories, especially those of iterated prisoner’s dilemma. more...
- Published
- 2011
50. The Hobbesian Solution
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Ronald Beiner
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Calvinism ,Political theology ,Theocracy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Law ,State of nature ,Political philosophy ,Religious studies ,Morality ,Christianity ,Civil religion ,media_common - Published
- 2010
- Full Text
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