scholarly journals Theodicy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (29) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Claudio Tugnoli
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
National Community ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Will ◽  
Good And Evil

Throughout all of Rousseau’s works there is tension between argumentation and feeling, speculation and intuition, reason and conscience. Reason binds men when they think correctly, but divides them and opposes one to the other when they place it at the service of self-interest, of ambition and of the will to prevail. Conversely, the universality of conscience is immediate and transparent: it transmits the truth of the existence of God, of the freedom of men, of the distinction between good and evil, as well as of the universal principles that are at the roots of human action and of the virtues honoured by all human societies, despite the differences of particular legislations. Mankind possesses an innate and intuitive conscience of the fundamental principles by which its conduct must be inspired. Were we to consider human actions only according to the criterion of physical need, of causality and of movement, vices and virtues would disappear and terms like morality and honesty would have no meaning. But each one of us perceives from within that this is not the case. We feel that moral good and evil are more real than anything else, without any need whatsoever to prove it. To obey the conscience one has of good and of evil without human mediation means to reject the dogmatic formalism of religions as well as the vanity of philosophical disputes. Every human being, however, is inserted into a national community. What should the state’s attitude be vis-à-vis religion? Rousseau indicates two paths. The first consists in establishing a purely civil religion that admits only those dogmas that are truly useful to society. Rousseau highlights the contradiction of a Christian religion that, although it is the religion of peace par excellence, fuels continuing bloody clashes among men due to a dogmatic theology that is totally alien to the essence of the Gospel and extremely hazardous for the life of the State. The second path consists in allowing Christianity to retain its authentic spirit, its freedom from any material constraint, without any obligations other than those of individual conscience. The Christian religion has such a pure and noble moral that it cannot but benefit the State, as long as one does not expect to make it part of the constitution.

Divine and Human Agency in Calvin’s Institutes

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Emily Theus
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the doctrines of providence and sin in the Institutes of Christian Religion in order to draw out Calvin’s views on the interplay of human and divine agency. Calvin’s account of God’s particular providence establishes the basic conditions for human responsibility and characterizes God’s agency as perfectly efficacious—so much so that the relationship between God’s willing and evil/sin cannot adequately be captured through language of ‘permission’. The doctrine of sin further inflects this account, clarifying the relationship between human freedom, necessity, and responsibility for sin. The result is a challenging picture, in which humans are responsible for sin, but not for good, and in which God is causally determinative of both good and evil. The key to this account—to understanding its perplexities and to identifying what features of meaningful human action are at stake—is the nesting of intentions within a layering of human and divine agency.

AGRARIAN REFORM UNDER THE REIGN OF JOKO WIDODO VIEWED FROM BASIC AGRARIAN LAW

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Rizka Refliarny ◽  
Herawan Sauni ◽  
Hamdani Ma'akir
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Agrarian Reform ◽  
The State ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Reform Program ◽  
The Will ◽  
A Priority ◽  
Agrarian Law ◽  
Priority Program

This study raises the issue of agrarian reform draft under the reign of President Joko Widodo. Agrarian reform became a priority program in the RPJMN of 2015-2019. Based on this matter, the writer analyzes the concept of agrarian reform during the reign of Joko Widodo terms of BAL. The nature of the study was a normative research with statute approach, which was done in four ways, namely descriptive, comparative, evaluative and argumentative. The results showed that the agrarian reform draft during the reign of Joko Widodo is a concept of land stewardship and land reform. The economic system leads to a form of capitalism. It is necessary to conduct refinement of content and material of BAL implementation in order to achieve the justice and the welfare of the nation and the State. The agrarian reform program should be carried out in stages in order to obtain the desired results. It requires the will, ability and active involvement of all elements of the state.

Nation Branding:

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Gisela K. Cánepa
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
National Community ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit

Nation branding plays a central role within neoliberal governmentality, operating as a technology of power in the configuration of emerging cultural and political formations such as national identity, citizenship and the state. The discussion of the advertising spot Perú, Nebraska  released as part of the Nation Branding campaign Marca Perú  in May of 2011, constitutes a great opportunity to: (i) argue about the way in which audiovisual advertisement products, designed as performative devises, operate as technologies of power; and (ii) problematize the terms in which it founds a new social contract for the Peruvian multicultural national community. This analysis will allow me to approach neoliberalism as a cultural regime in order to discuss the ideological nature of the uncontested celebratory discourse that has emerged in Perú and which explains the economic growth of the last decades as the outcome of a national entrepreneurial spirit that would be distinctive of Peruvian cultural identity.

New and not so new strategies in promoting integrity with particular reference to Africa

2018 ◽  
pp. 38-74
Author(s):  
Barry Rider
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Law ◽  
Financial Intelligence ◽  
New Strategies

This article is focused on exploration not merely proposed developments in and refinements of the law and its administration, but the very significant role that financial intelligence can and should play in protecting our societies. It is the contention of the author that the intelligence community at large and in particular financial intelligence units have an important role to play in protecting our economies and ensuring confidence is maintained in our financial institutions and markets. In this article the author considers a number of issues pertinent to the advancement of integrity and in particular the interdiction of corruption to some degree from the perspective of Africa. The potential for Africa as a player in the world economy is enormous. So far, the ambiguous inheritance of rapacious empires and the turmoil of self-dealing elites in post-colonial times has successfully obscured and undermined this potential. Indeed, such has been the mismanagement, selfishness and importuning that many have grave doubts as to the ability of many states to achieve an ordered transition to what they could and should be. South Africa is perhaps the best example of a society that while avoiding the catastrophe that its recent past predicted, remains racked by corruption and mismanagement. That there is the will in many parts of the continent to further stability and security by addressing the cancer of corruption, the reality is that few have remained or been allowed to remain steadfast in their mission and all have been frustrated by political self-interest and lack of resources. The key might be education and inter-generational change as it has been in other parts of the world, but only an optimist would see this coming any time soon – there is too much vested interest inside and outside Africa in keeping things much as they are! The author focuses not so much on attempting to perfect the letter of the law, but rather on improving the ways in which we administer it.

“Promising” Ideas: Hobbes and contract in Spinoza’s political philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
The Right ◽  
Good And Evil

Like Hobbes, Spinoza prominently invokes promising and contracts (covenants) in his discussion of the foundations of the state—primarily, but not exclusively, in his Theological-Political Treatise. His understanding of their nature and significance, however, differs in important ways from that of Hobbes. This chapter poses four related puzzles concerning Spinoza’s claims about promises and contracts as they invoke or relate specifically to Hobbes: “whether the right of nature is preserved intact”; whether “reason urges peace in all circumstances”; whether breaking a promise is ever “in accordance with reason”; and whether one is obligated to keep a pledge extorted by a robber. Next, it analyzes and compares the doctrines of Hobbes and Spinoza on several key topics: rights and powers, good and evil, reason and passion, and faith and deception (both “evil deception” [“dolus malus”] and “good deception” [“dolus bonus”]). Finally, it employs these doctrines to resolve the four puzzles.

The Mystery of Freedom

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-206
Author(s):  
Pilar López de Santa María
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Different Parts

Freedom is the focus of the first of the writings included in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. The attention that Schopenhauer devotes to the subject does not stop here, however, since freedom appears recurrently in different parts of his system. It is linked to his theory of knowledge, metaphysics, aesthetics, and the denial of the will. This chapter follows that track and examines the presence in different contexts of Schopenhauerian thought of a freedom that is so undeniable as unexplainable. In this way will be shown Schopenhauer’s transition from the freedom of the voluntas to the freedom of noluntas [non-willing] and the state of great liberation that occurs because the will frees itself from itself. It is a transition that begins and ends at the same point: mystery

Tocqueville, Democratic Poetry, and the Religion of Humanity

Utilitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Üner Daglier
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Neutral Tone ◽  
Religion Of Humanity ◽  
Religious Morality

Abstract The Religion of Humanity has typically been associated with Auguste Comte's positivism. Within liberal philosophical debate, John Stuart Mill's measured advocacy for it has received some attention, especially given his otherwise well-known emphasis on the tension between religion and liberty. Yet Alexis de Tocqueville's perceptive awareness of the Religion of Humanity as an evolving phenomenon, expressed through his discussion of democratic poetry, remained largely unnoticed. Of course, Tocqueville's essential religio-political task was to promote a modified version of Christianity and buttress the standing of religious morality as an outside barrier against human action motivated by democratic materialism, notwithstanding the secular doctrine of self-interest well understood. Indeed, despite the neutral tone of Tocqueville's discussion of democratic poetry, elsewhere his critique of democratic pantheism, writers and orators, theatre, and historians warned against excessive veneration of humanity, which amounted to a sublimation of the dogma of the sovereignty of the people.

scholarly journals God and the Playpen: On the Feasibility of Morally Better Worlds

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 266
Author(s):  
Cheryl K. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Actual World ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Horrendous Evil ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Free Will Defense ◽  
Better Than

According to the free will defense, God cannot create a world with free creatures, and hence a world with moral goodness, without allowing for the possibility of evil. David Lewis points out that any free will defense must address the “playpen problem”: why didn’t God allow creatures the freedom required for moral goodness, while intervening to ensure that all evil-doing is victimless? More recently, James Sterba has revived the playpen problem by arguing that an omnipotent and benevolent God would have intervened to prevent significant and especially horrendous evil. I argue that it is possible, at least, that such divine intervention would have backfired, and that any attempt to create a world that is morally better than this one would have resulted in a world that is morally worse. I conclude that the atheologian should instead attack the free will defense at its roots: either by denying that the predetermination of our actions is incompatible with our freely per-forming them, or by denying that the actual world—a world with both moral good and evil—is more valuable than a world without any freedom at all.

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