Practical Necessity and History I

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-78
Author(s):  
David James
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Freedom ◽  
Practical Necessity

Rousseau’s idea of ‘moral’ freedom is shown to imply an element of contingency in history. Rousseau can be seen to identify three historical models, the first of which entails the possibility of stasis, whereas the other two presuppose and incorporate the idea of a subjection to practical necessity which explains the development of the capacity for moral freedom. Once this capacity has been sufficiently developed, history may result in significantly different, equally possible, outcomes depending on whether or not this capacity is exercised and how it is exercised. One of these outcomes is a genuine social contract. Rousseau appeals to practical necessity in order to explain how individuals would agree to enter into this contract. We here encounter a potential advantage of a mode of explanation that relies on the notion of practical necessity: it requires introducing fewer assumptions about how agents are disposed to act and what motivates them.

Practical Necessity and Moral Heroism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Fruh
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Moral Exemplars ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Practical Necessity ◽  
The Status ◽  
Illuminating Light

Discussions of closely associated notions of practical necessity, volitional necessity, and moral incapacity have profited from a focus on cases of agential crisis to further our understanding of how features of an agent’s character might bind her. This paper turns to agents in crises in order to connect this way of being bound to the phenomenon of moral heroism. The connection is fruitful in both directions. Importing practical necessity into examinations of moral heroism can explain the special sense of bindingness moral heroes frequently express while preserving the status of heroic acts as supererogatory. It also helps explain how heroes persevere and act as so few others do. On the other hand, the context of moral heroism allows a fuller development of some features of the concept of practical necessity, shedding more illuminating light on the roots of practical necessity in character through recent findings in the psychology of moral exemplars.

The Maximum Claims of Gauthier's Bargainers: Are the Fixed Social Inequalities Acceptable?

Dialogue ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-429
Author(s):  
David Braybrooke
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Maximum Utility ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Principle Of Maximum

A central feature of David Gauthier's impressively searching version of social contract theory is the principle of maximin relative advantage. Given certain assumptions—more than he originally thought—this principle may be described as calling for maximum equal advantage, which is easier to talk about; and I shall refer to the principle under this description. Maximum equal relative advantage is equivalent to minimum equal relative concession; hence the principle of maximum equal relative advantage has a twin and mirror, the principle of minimum equal relative concession. Relative advantage and relative concession are ratios with the same denominator, the difference for a given agent between the maximum utility (umax) that she might get from the societyt o be contracted for and the minimum utility (umin) that would give her an incentive to cooperate in establishing the society and in keeping it up. The numerator for the one ratio—relative advantage—is the difference between the utility that she is actually going to gain from society (ua) and her minimum cooperative utility (umin). The numerator for the other ratio—relative concession—is the difference between her maximum utility (umax) and the utility that she is going to get (ua), in other words, the amount of utility that she foregoes in not getting her maximum.

scholarly journals Mencermati Teori Keadilan Sosial John Rawls

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-192
Author(s):  
A. Khudori Soleh
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Justice Theory ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Principles Of Justice

Rawls' justice theory is based on three basic concepts: concept of property from John Locke, social contract from Rousseau, and imperative categories from Kant. This Rawls' justice conception itself emerges as a respond for social injustice in society as well as i nequitable behavior affected by the ethics of utilitarianism. Furthermore, according to Rawls, justice is fairness. The principles of justice are, (1) equal and maximum feasible liberty for all, (2) power and wealth to be distributed equally, except where inequalities; would work for the adage of all and where all would have equal opportunity to attain the higher position. The first principle supposes as permanent principle and, which cannot be interpreted. On the other hand, the second principle degrades two formulas: (a) everyone’s  advantage (b) equally open. So forth, from formula (a) can be degraded two possibilities: principle of efficiency and principle of differentiation, whereas from formula (b) also can be degraded two possibilities: equality as careers open to talents and equality as equality of fair opportunity): Hencefonh, from possibility of (a) and (b) yielded four possibilities of justice interpretation: natural freedom, free equality, free aristocracy and the equality democratize.  

scholarly journals Union Discourse and Perceived Violation of Contract

2008 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Peyrat-Guillard
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Psychological Contract ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Senior Management ◽  
The Other ◽  
Breach Of Contract ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Social

This article proposes a study of the violation of contract process through a case study. The study is based on a discourse of the union, SUD Michelin, which is contrasted both with those of another union, the CFE-CGC Michelin and of the senior management of the corporation. The results highlight the possibility of applying Morrison and Robinson’s (1997) Psychological Contract Violation model at the social contract level. The emotional reactions appearing in the literature, which are associated with contract violations, can be seen in the union discourse of the SUD. The other union does not perceive any breach of contract. These differences may be attributed to the very nature of social contracts—relational in the first case, and more balanced in the second.

scholarly journals Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction, A Love Story

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Kelly Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Love Story ◽  
The Social ◽  
Origin Story ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Voice

In The Right to Narcissism: A Case for Im-Possible Self-Love, Pleshette DeArmitt opens the space for an alternative to origin story so popular with political philosophers, namely, the social contract, which assumes a rational and self-identical subject.  She does this obliquely by deconstructing narcissism as love of the self-same, or, love of what Kristeva might call “the clean and proper self.”  Like Echo interrupting Narcissus’s soliloquy of deadly self-absorbed pleasure and his solitary auto-affection upon seeing his own reflection, Pleshette interrupts the seeming proximity of self-same, the closeness of near, and the propinquity of proper by deflecting the image of Narcissus onto the voice of Echo, who comes into her own by repeating his words.  How, asks Pleshette, can Echo’s reiteration of the words of another be anything more than mere repetition or reduplication?  Echoing Derrida, she answers that it is through a declaration of love.  Echo’s repetition of the words of Narcissus take on new meaning, and allow her to express herself, and her love, through the words of the other.  After all words are words of the other.  Language comes to us from the other.  Echo becomes a self, a “little narcissist,” through an address from and to the other, through the appropriation and ex-appropriation of the other’s words. 

scholarly journals The Approach of Democracy in Islamic Political Thought: مقاربة الديمقراطية في الفكر السياسي الإسلامي

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramzi Odah
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Great Degree ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
Islamic Political Thought ◽  
Difference Of Opinion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

  The present study examined the problematic relationship between democracy and the system of government in Islam, whereby considering that the concept of democracy represents a conceptually fundamental dilemma in Islamic political thought due to the link between this concept and secularism, and to the difference of opinion and diligence about it, and as a result of the expansion of the intellectual perspective of Islam as a religion without a state. This study found that there is a great degree - though not comprehensive - in the democratic conception covered by the Islamic political heritage through the inclusion of this heritage on the main dimensions of the theory of democracy in the contemporary sense; these dimensions are social contract, allegiance, Shura, human rights and the separation between the authorities. On the other hand, the study found that there are a number of religious, political, cultural and tribal factors that blended together and led to the exclusion of democracy as an explicit concept in the sources of Islamic political heritage despite the latter's coverage of the dimensions of democracy.  

scholarly journals Corruption, Corporations, and the New Human Right

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Spalding
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ◽  
Corporate Rights ◽  
Federal Statute ◽  
Corporate Liability

We should no longer expect the Alien Tort Statute to be the principal federal statute that deters overseas corporate rights violations. That distinction rightly belongs to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, an antibribery statute that rests on undisputed principles of corporate liability, contains a clear congressional statement of extraterritorial application, and routinely collects penalties from multinational corporate defendants. Scholars have not associated the FCPA with human rights, owing principally to a thin understanding of rights theory. But freedom from corruption can and should be understood as a human right, one that is as old as social contract theory but new to federal and international law. With specific reforms—one modeled after environmental law and the other after intellectual property—the FCPA can become a more powerful statutory tool for deterring overseas corporate rights violations than the ATS ever was or will be.

scholarly journals An Overview of Violence as a Vice of Consent

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-164
Author(s):  
Loredana VLAD ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual

People are considered bio-psycho-social beings. From the beginning of mankind, violence as part of human nature has manifested itself in relation to the other through the crime committed by Cain against his brother Abel. As time passed, it was found that a form of protection is needed to prolong the life of the individual, and thus by accepting the "social contract", man gave up his natural state in which freedom was absolute, in order to obey the law. In this paper I will bring to the fore a series of considerations with a focus on violence, emphasizing the idea of the vice of consent.

Writing the Social Contradiction: Rousseau’s Literary Politics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Beenstock
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
General Will ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Literary Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

This chapter explores Rousseau’s account of the tension between community and individual by examining the Second Discourse and the Social Contract on the one hand, and Julie on the other. In his political theory Rousseau defines the state of nature as a mere fantasy which belongs to an optative imagined past. In leaving the state of nature, people trade basic needs for decadent desires. Rousseau introduces the general will as a practical device for managing the asociability of the private will, which is driven mainly by appetite. To safeguard the general will from its wayward members, individuals must form a social contract which transforms them into sociable beings. In Julie Rousseau explores the sacrifices that individuals make in joining the general will, as Julie is torn between personal desire on the one hand and social conformity on the other. Rousseau’s literature suggests that the two are incompatible and thus ‘judges’ his philosophy, exploring the deathly outcome of contract. Rousseau’s use of literature to critique the social contract constitutes his major legacy to British Romantic writers.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-154
Author(s):  
Olivier Roy
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Public Sphere

This concluding chapter discusses how values are returning today in the guise of dominant norms, both in the secular world and in religion. Today's crisis is not simply a crisis of values, but of referring to values at all. For what should values be founded on? On one hand, religions, which are no longer in sync with Europe's dominant cultures, are returning to the public sphere on behalf of a normative demand. On the other hand, the secular culture that professes freedom and rights is coming to a head in a burst of normative production. This is a normativity toward all forms of religion and religiosity, of course, but also normativity with respect to its own foundation, the social contract, and human nature, that of the desiring subject. Ultimately, the chapter argues that it is time to re-examine the question of values, to restore the particular cultural and social aspects of norms and to reinject them into society. In the face of globalization, the issue is at once to be more in touch with society and to act as a counterweight to other influences in the world: only Europe can meet these two objectives.

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