Kant's Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice is Impossible in the State of Nature

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helga Varden
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Liberal Ideal ◽  
Moral Response ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Necessary Evil ◽  
The Ideal

In this paper, I present and defend Kant's non-voluntarist conception of political obligations. I argue that civil society is not primarily a prudential requirement for justice; it is not merely a necessary evil or a moral response to combat our corrupting nature or our tendency to act viciously, thoughtlessly or in a biased manner. Rather, civil society is constitutive of rightful relations among persons because only in civil society can we interact in ways reconcilable with each person's innate right to freedom. Civil society is the means through which we can rightfully interact even on the ideal assumption that no one ever succumbs to immoral temptation. Kant's account, therefore, provides ideal reasons to support the claim that voluntarism cannot be the liberal ideal of political obligations.

scholarly journals The Early Literary Evolution of the Notorious Pirate Henry Avery

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Richard Frohock
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Literary History ◽  
The State ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Literary Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil Order

Henry Avery (alternately spelled Every) was one of the most notorious pirates of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and scholars have written much about Avery in an effort to establish the historical details of his mutiny and acts of piracy. Other scholars have focused on the substantial literary production that his life occasioned; the early literary history of Avery’s exploits evolves quickly away from the known facts of his life, offering instead a literary trajectory of accumulated tropes about Avery’s motivations, actions, and transformations. This literary invention of Avery is a compelling subject in itself, particularly as writers used his story to explore pressing philosophical and political concerns of the period. In this essay, I consider how early fictions about Avery look well beyond the history of a particular pirate to ruminate on topical ideas about the state of nature, the origins of civil society, and human tendencies toward self-interest and corruption that seem—inevitably—to accompany power and threaten civil order, however newly formed or ostensibly principled.

Law, Freedom, and Slavery

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Joshua Neoh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Legal Subjectivity

Abstract This paper argues that the wrong of slavery lies in the denial of the good of law to the slave. Defending this proposition will require the positing of three related claims: (i) that law is good, (ii) that the good of law is denied to the slave, and (iii) that the denial is wrong. This paper will defend the main proposition by defending its three constituent claims. On claim (i), the paper will relate the form of law to the formation of freedom. On claim (ii), the paper will relate law’s objectivity to legal subjectivity. On claim (iii), the paper will relate the state of nature to the state of civil society.

Spinoza and Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 210-223
Author(s):  
Alexandre Matheron
Keyword(s):  
Causal Power ◽  
Maximum Amount ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Political Society ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Theory Point ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The Ideal

In this chapter, Matheron lays out in perhaps its most concise form the Spinozist theory of power in language that is particularly inflected with Marxist terminology. From the initial claim that God is absolute causal power, from which nothing is exempt, Matheron builds up Spinoza’s theory point by point from the perspective of an isolated individual faced with nature to our preliminary interactions with others. Matheron then shifts to the perspective of a multitude of human individuals, describing the chaotic and despotic relations of power that necessarily inhere in the ‘state of nature’ and which are subsequently transformed with the establishment of political society. The ideal political organization would be one the encourages the maximum amount of democracy. However, Spinoza is no theorist of bourgeois democracy precisely because he sees the State as the result of a relation of forces, and not the actual realisation of the ideals of ‘reason’ or ‘liberty’.

What we own Before Property: Hugo Grotius and the Suum

Grotiana ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Mancilla
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Scholarly Attention

At the basis of modern natural law theories, the concept of the suum, i.e. what belongs to the person (in Latin, his, her, its, their own), has received little scholarly attention despite its importance both in explaining and justifying not only the genealogy of property, but also that of morality and war. In this essay I focus on Grotius’s account of the suum and examine what it is, what things it includes, what rights it gives rise to, and how it is extended in the transition from the state of nature to civil society. I then briefly suggest that reviving this concept could help to illuminate the current discussion on the foundations of basic human rights, and to re-evaluate cases where these seem to clash with property rights.

Rousseau on Equality

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Cranston
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature

Rousseau has the reputation of being a radical egalitarian. I shall suggest that a more careful reading of his work shows him to have been hardly more egalitarian than Plato. He was undoubtedly disturbed by existing inequalities, especially as he observed them in France. He had an original and interesting theory about how inequality among men came into being; he also set out what he considered to be the connections between equality and freedom. As a champion of a certain idea of freedom, he wrote in favor of specific sorts of equality; even as Plato, as the champion of a certain idea of justice, wrote in favor of putting every man in his place. The great difference is that Plato believed that men were never equal, whereas Rousseau believed they had once been equal but no longer were.To the proposition that all men are born equal he could be said to subscribe only in the sense that “all men were originally equal”. Rousseau argued that equality prevailed in the state of nature; but he also said it would be wrong to expect, even to desire such equality in civil society. In the final footnote to his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (hereinafter called the Second Discourse) he wrote (in 1753): “Distributive justice would still be opposed to that rigorous equality of the state of nature, even if it were practicable in civil society.”1Commentators eager to claim Rousseau as an egalitarian, or proto-Marx, ignore this footnote; as for the opinions expressed in the Dedication to the Second Discourse, opinions no less at variance with egalitarian ideology, they tend to be dismissed as empty hyperbole, designed to ingratiate the philosopher with the authorities of Geneva at a time when he wanted to recover his rights as a citizen and burgess.

scholarly journals Aspects du mal et de la méchanceté chez Sade / Aspects of Evil and Villainy in Sade

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 303-314
Author(s):  
Amirpasha Tavakkoli
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Nous Allons ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
The Ideal

Résumé: Influencé par la philosophie des Lumières et hostile à l’égard de la morale chrétienne, Sade envisage de déconstruire le discours philosophico-moral de son temps. Il s’intéresse à l’idée de l’état de nature sous un angle différent de celui des philosophes et des moralistes. En plaçant le Mal au centre de ses réflexions, l’objectif pour lui est de renverser le discours dominant de son temps en prenant l’inceste, le meurtre et les perversions comme étant les maximes conductrices de sa pensée. Malgré l’apparence immorale de ses écrits, Sade tombe dans un schéma moralisant reposant sur l’idéal du Mal qu’il adore. Agir et penser selon les commandements du Mal, deviennent les fondements de l’éthique sadienne. Une réflexion que nous allons approfondir à la lumière des réflexions de Klossowski, Bataille et Jacques Lacan.Mots-clés : mal; état de nature; loi; éthique; transgression.Abstract: Influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightment and hostile toward Christian morality, Sade endeavored to criticize the moral-philosophical discourse of his time, focusing on the idea of the state of nature in a radically different way from contemporary philosophers and moralists. By placing Evil at the center of his considerations, he aims to overturn the dominant discourse of his time by enlisting incest, murder, and perversions as the tenets guiding his thought. Despite the immoral appearance of his writings, Sade falls prey to a moralizing schema based on the ideal of Evil. Acting and thinking according to the commandments of Evil then becomes the fundaments of Sade’s ethics. The idea moving this paper is to deepen our understanding of this theory in light of reflections by Klossowski, Bataille, and Lacan.Keywords: Evil, state of nature, law, ethic, transgression.

scholarly journals The Emergence of Civil Society in Hobbesian Philosophy

Jurnal Office ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Edor John Edor
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Social

The origin of the modern state has left many scholars intellectually engaged. Sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, jurists, anthropologists, and philosophers have variously grappled with the issue of the origin of the state. Thomas Hobbes is one of the great thinkers who has contributed to the discussion on the origin of the state. Thomas Hobbes is of the view that naturally, that is, man in the state of nature, is a-social, atavistically thinking about himself alone. Because of this atomistic and solitary disposition of man in the state of nature, the society was accentuated by an unprecedented degree of rancor, acrimony and obfuscation. Given this picture of man and the pre-civil-society depicted by Hobbes, one would feel that justifying the emergence of the civil society would become difficult. This paper examines how Hobbes migrated man from the state of nature to the civil society in spite of the gory picture of him he had painted. Thomas Hobbes’ theory of the origin of the state is categorized in the class of the social contract theories. 

scholarly journals Transformasi Teologis Politik Demokrasi Indonesia (Telaah singkat Tentang Masyarakat Madani dalam Wacana Pluralisme Agama di Indonesia)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-56
Author(s):  
Tabrani ZA
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sphere Culture ◽  
Political Approach ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Islamic Faith ◽  
The Ideal

Raised the urgency of the terms are, how the concept of civil society as a societal good that is created in the life of the nation in Indonesia, as the frame of the existing diversity, religion and culture, and political system of Pancasila democracy. Civil society in the context of Indonesian is how to control the formation of communities in the state through institutional self-activity, independence and autonomy, as well as the establishment of an embodiment of a democratic society. In the context of the Indonesian Pancasila principles, and also with a democratic system of governance, and there is this dilemma and think about the ideal, which is between the Islamic faith and respect for the rights and freedom of religion, politics and the state. The presence of Islam in the transformation objective and mainly do the religious rights and political and human resources in line with the agenda, as well as religious harmony. Islam in Indonesia is constructed precisely by turning good value in the social sphere, culture, politics, economy, education, and access to the system, which in this case involves the rules in the management of the nation's life. We need to develop democratic institutions, especially political institutionalization, as well as to ensure the continuity of effective bureaucratic government open and participatory. This paper examines an attempt to briefly try on civil society in the discourse of religious pluralism in Indonesia with the social - political approach.

Some Thoughts on Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Lockean Contractarian Approach

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Rau
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Special Form ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Totalitarian State

Neither the concept of the totalitarian system nor the newly worked-out notion of ‘socialist civil society’ can express the social and political phenomenon of the rise and growth of independent groups and movements in Eastern Europe. Rather, it is suggested here that the Lockean contractarian approach should be used. This embraces mutually interacting ethical, empirical and analytic arguments which would take into consideration the state, the independent groups organized outside it, and the relationships between them. The utility of the model of the totalitarian state in understanding the origin of independent groups is discussed here. Lockean multidimensional individualism is suggested as a category expressing the political character of these groups, and Lockean teaching on absolute monarchy—a special form of the state of nature—is advanced as the means for analysing the relationship between these groups and the state of the Soviet type.

Thomas Hobbes: Power in the State of Nature, Power in Civil Society

Polity ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Read
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature
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