Cicero

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-62
Author(s):  
Michael C. Hawley
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The People ◽  
Ultimate Source ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores Cicero’s republican political philosophy. It argues that Cicero’s political thought has two fundamental principles. First, Cicero argues that there are universally applicable moral duties—the natural law—that are binding on everyone always. These principles have their basis in humans’ nature as rational beings. Second, he argues that a legitimate regime will recognize the people as the ultimate source of authority. No political regime can be just without resting on this basis. But these two principles threaten to come into conflict whenever the people’s will contradicts natural law. The chapter examines Cicero’s attempt to mediate this conflict. It also explores Cicero’s conceptions of liberty, justice, property, and empire, all of which emerge out of the relationship between the claims of natural law and popular sovereignty.

The Open Society and the Democracy to Come: Bergson, Deleuze and Guattari

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Baugh
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
The People ◽  
To Come ◽  
Polar Opposite ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Gain Access

In Bergsonism, Deleuze refers to Bergson's concept of an ‘open society’, which would be a ‘society of creators’ who gain access to the ‘open creative totality’ through acting and creating. Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy is oriented toward the goal of such an open society. This would be a democracy, but not in the sense of the rule of the actually existing people, but the rule of ‘the people to come,’ for in the actually existing situation, such a people is ‘lacking’. When the people becomes a society of creators, the result is a society open to the future, creativity and the new. Their openness and creative freedom is the polar opposite of the conformism and ‘herd mentality’ condemned by Deleuze and Nietzsche, a mentality which is the basis of all narrow nationalisms (of ethnicity, race, religion and creed). It is the freedom of creating and commanding, not the Kantian freedom to obey Reason and the State. This paper uses Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, and Deleuze and Guattari's Kafka: For a Minor Literature, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? to sketch Deleuze and Guattari's conception of the open society and of a democracy that remains ‘to come’.

A New Hope

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Oklopcic
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

As the final chapter of the book, Chapter 10 confronts the limits of an imagination that is constitutional and constituent, as well as (e)utopian—oriented towards concrete visions of a better life. In doing so, the chapter confronts the role of Square, Triangle, and Circle—which subtly affect the way we think about legal hierarchy, popular sovereignty, and collective self-government. Building on that discussion, the chapter confronts the relationship between circularity, transparency, and iconography of ‘paradoxical’ origins of democratic constitutions. These representations are part of a broader morphology of imaginative obstacles that stand in the way of a more expansive constituent imagination. The second part of the chapter focuses on the most important five—Anathema, Nebula, Utopia, Aporia, and Tabula—and closes with the discussion of Ernst Bloch’s ‘wishful images’ and the ways in which manifold ‘diagrams of hope and purpose’ beyond the people may help make them attractive again.

Laws, Liberties, and the Will of the People

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-177
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
Development Of Resistance ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will ◽  
Role Of Religion

From the 1560s, tensions between Protestant and Catholics escalated and this was accompanied by a wave of writing on political and religious ideas, especially in France and the Netherlands. There was a renewed interest in the nature and origins of authority within the political sphere, particularly the importance of the ‘people’ and the ways in which their will could be both represented and controlled. This chapter considers some of the key texts of resistance theory written in the 1560s and 1570s, including Francogallia and the Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos in France, and George Buchanan’s De Jure Regni apud Scotos in Scotland. Discussions of liberty and privileges in the Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt are also considered; here historically based arguments began to be supplemented by appeals to wider principles of morality and natural law. The election of Henry of Valois to the Polish throne provides one example of elective monarchy in practice. This chapter discusses the role of religion and of legal arguments in the development of resistance theories. It also highlights some of the practical and conceptual difficulties in appealing to popular sovereignty, especially in a period of deep confessional divisions, and shows how the authority of magistrates could be understood in different ways.

The Power of the People

2020 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Ari Hirvonen ◽  
Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Theoretical Idea ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
The People ◽  
Jacques Rancière

In this chapter Hirvonen and Lindroos-Hovinheimo argue that the revolutionary power of constituent power and popular sovereignty are relevant conditions of radical emancipatory and egalitarian politics. How the people become the people – and what makes the people in its becoming – are relevant questions in modern democracy. The article considers the power of the people as a theoretical idea and political possibility. It brings together the older tradition of political philosophy with contemporary theory by discussing Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas together with those of Jacques Rancière, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Alain Badiou.

2. Natural law and morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-73
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship between the ancient classical theory of natural law and its application to contemporary moral questions. It considers the role of natural law in political philosophy, the decline of the theory of natural law, and its revival in the twentieth century. The principal focus is on John Finnis’s natural law theory based largely on the works of St Thomas Aquinas. The chapter posits a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ natural law, examines the notion of moral realism, and examines the tension between law and morality; and the subject of the moral dilemmas facing judges in unjust societies.

Deleuze and Guattari and the Future of Politics: Science Fiction, Protocols and the People to Come

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (supplement) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Bogue
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Relationship

When is the future? Is it to come or is it already here? This question serves as the frame for three further questions: why is utopia a bad concept and in what way is fabulation its superior counterpart? If the object of fabulation is the creation of a people to come, how do we get from the present to the future? And what is a people to come? The answers are (1) that the future is both now and to come, now as the becoming-revolutionary of our present and to come as the goal of our becoming; (2) utopia is a bad concept because it posits a pre-formed blueprint of the future, whereas a genuinely creative future has no predetermined shape and fabulation is the means whereby a creative future may be generated; (3) the movement from the revolutionary present toward a people to come proceeds via the protocol, which provides reference points for an experiment which exceeds our capacities to foresee; (4) a people to come is a collectivity that reconfigures group relations in a polity superior to the present, but it is not a utopian collectivity without differences, conflicts and political issues. Science fiction formulates protocols of the politics of a people to come, and Octavia Butler's science fiction is especially valuable in disclosing the relationship between fabulation and the invention of a people to come.

Kant’s Political Philosophy as a Theory of Non-Ideal Normativity

Kant-Studien ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Horn
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract:Kant’s political philosophy confronts its interpreters with a crucial difficulty: it is far from clear if (or how) Kant, in his political theory, makes use of the Categorical Imperative (CI). It is notoriously demanding to clarify the relationship that exists between his political thought on the one hand and the ethics of the

scholarly journals Politics and constitutional jurisgenesis: A cautionary note on political constitutionalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-111
Author(s):  
MING-SUNG KUO
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
The People ◽  
Robust Version ◽  
Judicial Supremacy ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract:This article aims to provide an alternative account of political constitutionalism by situating it in a broader process of constitutional politics than the traditional court vs parliament debate has suggested. Drawing upon Robert Cover’s distinction between the jurispathic and the jurisgenerative constitution, I argue that parliamentary decision-making is not necessarily more congenial to a jurisgenerative constitutional order than judicial review as political constitutionalists contend. I trace the jurispathic character of current scholarship on political constitutionalism to the presupposition of institutional sovereignty in a narrow understanding of constitutional politics, which its defenders share in common with the supporters of judicial supremacy. To move towards a robust version of non-court-centred jurisgenerative constitutionalism, which I call constitutional jurisgenesis, we need to rethink the place of politics in a constitutional order. From Cover’s idea of constitutionalnomosI take two further lessons for this new understanding of constitutional politics. First, constitutional theory should reconsider the role of institutional sovereignty in the relationship between law and politics in constitutional orders. Second, to engage the people in constitutional politics, we need to shift attention from the popular sovereignty-centred debate to constitutional narratives, which are oriented towardsnomos-building.

scholarly journals Looking for democracy in fiduciary government. Historical notes on an unsettled relationship (ca. 1520-1650)

Daímon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
David Guerrero
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fiduciary Duties ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Normative Foundations

Una perspectiva reciente sobre los fundamentos normativos del derecho público ha propuesto concebir las relaciones entre ciudadanía y Estado como una “relación fiduciaria”, usando deberes fiduciarios del ámbito iusprivado para justificar limitaciones jurídicas y morales al poder del Estado. La gobernanza fiduciaria también ha sido señalada como una característica distintiva del republicanismo y la soberanía popular, ya que sitúa a la comunidad política como fideicomitente y beneficiaria de cualquier acto administrativo. En este artículo se revisan algunas concepciones protomodernas del gobierno considerando sus justificaciones explícitamente fiduciarias. Concluye con una interpretación fiduciaria del iusnaturalismo Leveller, especialmente necesario para entender (y puede que restaurar) la relación de la gobernanza fiduciaria con la democracia.   A recent perspective on the normative foundations of public law has proposed to conceive citizen-state relationships as a “fiduciary relationship”, using private-law fiduciary duties to justify legal and moral constrains on state power. Fiduciary governance has also been pointed as a distinct feature of republicanism and popular sovereignty, since it places the political community as trustor and beneficiary of any administrative act. This paper reviews some early modern conceptions of government considering their explicit fiduciary justifications. It concludes with a fiduciary account of Leveller natural law, especially needed to understand (and maybe to restore) the relationship between fiduciary governance and democracy.

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