scholarly journals Kryzys idei neutralności moralnej prawa

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-362
Author(s):  
Michał Błachut
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
Characteristic Element ◽  
Fundamental Values

The idea of the moral neutrality of law is a characteristic element of liberal political and legal doctrines. This concept is also an element of constitutional principles regulating the limits of permissible legislative interference in the sphere of freedom. In such context, the bond linking it with the clearly defined axiology from which it derives is severed. The aim of this study is to consider to what extent the principle of the moral neutrality of law, being a principle affecting the activity of the legislator, retains its potential in identifying and limiting totalizing practices aimed at systematically limiting choices in the field of the concept of a good life and favouring a specific vision of the legal and political order in both spheres of human activity, individual and collective. The numerous variants of the moral neutrality of law formulated in political philosophy, and the distinctions between individual variants, in conjunction with the criticism of this concept, make it necessary to pay attention to whether this way of limiting totalizing practices is a good tool, resistant to the changing conditions. A review of critical arguments directed against the idea of neutrality leads to the conclusion that the weakening of the concept of the moral neutrality of law translates not only into its value in identifying and preventing totalizing practices, but also into weakening the protection of fundamental values, such as individual autonomy.

Introduction: Carl Schmitt's Challenge to Liberalism

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
David Dyzenhaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Fundamental Values

The collapse of the Weimar Republic (1918-33) haunts political debate these days. Disaffected groups again challenge, with increasing support, the most fundamental values of the liberal democracies. In dealing with the “fact of pluralism” contemporary political philosophy grapples with this challenge. Any attempt to contest conceptions of the good life going against the grain of liberal democratic values invites the charge that liberalism is just one ideology among others, each seeking to enforce upon the whole its own partial idea of the good.

Creation, Fall and Political Order — Prussian Conservatism and the Old Testament

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Laura C. Achtelstetter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Wars

Abstract This article examines differences within the theological basis of early nineteenth-century Prussian conservatism. By exploring the usage of the Old Testament in the writings of conservative thought leaders Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, and Friedrich Julius Stahl, this article contributes to scholarship of both traditions of biblical interpretation and that of the relation of theology and political theory. The focus of this article centers on three concepts of the Old Testament and their implementation in conservative political doctrine. I will discuss Hengstenberg’s concept of biblical historicity and unity of Scripture, Gerlach’s use of the Old Testament as the source of a role model for just religious wars and a theocratic concept of law, as well as Stahl’s bible-based political philosophy of history and the resulting model of political order. Thus, the basis for different, resulting concepts of church, state, and nation that were merged into an overall religion-based political conservative doctrine in pre-1848 Prussia are analyzed.

The Truth in Political Realism

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-121
Author(s):  
Charles Larmore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Primary Object

This chapter analyzes groups that follow different moral or religious traditions that generally have their own internal controversies, such as conflicts in the absence of laws to handle them and render social cooperation difficult or even impossible. It also explains why political philosophy is not properly a province of moral philosophy. It talks about the fundamental task in determining the kind of political order that can justifiably impose authoritative rules for handling the major conflicts in society. The chapter also clarifies why legitimacy and not distributive justice should be the primary object of political philosophy. For legitimacy is involved with the conditions under which enforceable rules may be justifiably imposed on the members of a society.

Critical theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Geuss ◽  
J. M. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Conception Of The Good

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research, the School was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. The three most important philosophers belonging to it were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. The project was renewed by the second- and third-generation critical theorists, most notably, Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse feared that modern Western societies were turning into closed, totalitarian systems in which all individual autonomy was eliminated. In their earliest writings from the 1930s they presented this tendency towards totalitarianism as one result of the capitalist mode of production. In later accounts they give more prominence to the role of science and technology in modern society, and to the concomitant, purely ‘instrumental’, conception of reason. This conception of reason denies that there can be any such thing as inherently rational ends or goals for human action and asserts that reason is concerned exclusively with the choice of effective instruments or means for attaining arbitrary ends. ‘Critical theory’ was to be a form of resistance to contemporary society; its basic method was to be that of ‘internal’ or ‘immanent’ criticism. Every society, it was claimed, must be seen as making a tacit claim to substantive (and not merely instrumental) rationality; that is, making the claim that it allows its members to lead a good life. This claim gives critical theory a standard for criticism which is internal to the society being criticized. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. The conception of the good life to which each society makes tacit appeal in legitimizing itself will usually not be fully propositionally explicit, so any critical theory will have to begin by extracting a tacit conception of the good life from the beliefs, cultural artefacts and forms of experience present in the society in question. One of the particular difficulties confronting a critical theory of contemporary society is the disappearance of traditional substantive conceptions of the good life that could serve as a basis for internal criticism, and their replacement with the view that modern society needs no legitimation beyond simple reference to its actual efficient functioning, to its ‘instrumental’ rationality. The ideology of ‘instrumental rationality’ thus itself becomes a major target for critical theory.

Critical theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Geuss
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Conception Of The Good

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research, the School was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. The three most important philosophers belonging to it were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse feared that modern Western societies were turning into closed, totalitarian systems in which all individual autonomy was eliminated. In their earliest writings from the 1930s they presented this tendency towards totalitarianism as one result of the capitalist mode of production. In later accounts they give more prominence to the role of science and technology in modern society, and to the concomitant, purely ‘instrumental’, conception of reason. This conception of reason denies that there can be any such thing as inherently rational ends or goals for human action and asserts that reason is concerned exclusively with the choice of effective instruments or means for attaining arbitrary ends. ‘Critical theory’ was to be a form of resistance to contemporary society; its basic method was to be that of ‘internal’ or ‘immanent’ criticism. Every society, it was claimed, must be seen as making a tacit claim to substantive (and not merely instrumental) rationality; that is, making the claim that it allows its members to lead a good life. This claim gives critical theory a standard for criticism which is internal to the society being criticized. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. The conception of the good life to which each society makes tacit appeal in legitimizing itself will usually not be fully propositionally explicit, so any critical theory will have to begin by extracting a tacit conception of the good life from the beliefs, cultural artefacts and forms of experience present in the society in question. One of the particular difficulties confronting a critical theory of contemporary society is the disappearance of traditional substantive conceptions of the good life that could serve as a basis for internal criticism, and their replacement with the view that modern society needs no legitimation beyond simple reference to its actual efficient functioning, to its ‘instrumental’ rationality. The ideology of ‘instrumental rationality’ thus itself becomes a major target for critical theory.

The Exile of Political Theory: The Lost Homeland of Legitimation

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Simons
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legitimation Crisis ◽  
Implicit Definitions ◽  
Recurrent Theme

A sense of distance or exile is a recurrent theme of the literature in which the state of the political theory is either lamented or acclaimed. A review of these tales suggests that implicit definitions of the homeland of the sub-discipline as philosophical, practical or interpretive are inadequate, leading to mistaken diagnoses of the reasons for the ills or recovery of political philosophy. This paper argues that political theory has been exiled from its previous role or homeland of legitimation of political orders. Under contemporary conditions in the advanced liberal capitalist political order, in which a media-generated imagology of society as a communicative system fills the role of a legitimating discourse, political theory faces a legitimation crisis.

Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Shatz
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Enlightenment

Anarchism rejects the state as an inherently despotic institution that must be abolished in order for human nature to flower. This does not mean the absence of social order, however, for anarchism also contains a positive vision of the kind of community it expects to arise when political authority is eliminated. Although it shares liberalism's commitment to individual autonomy and Marxism's commitment to social justice, anarchism claims that it can implement those principles more fully and effectively without utilizing the mechanism of the state. Anarchism as a secular political philosophy originated as a product of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and anarchist thought was the cumulative product of a number of different individuals in different countries who elaborated its basic principles. This article examines the views of several thinkers on anarchism, including William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin, and Prince Peter Kropotkin. It also considers the link between anarchism and terrorism.

Autonomy, Education, and Societal Legitimacy

1998 ◽  
pp. 196-201
Author(s):  
Edward Sankowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Educational Model ◽  
Respect For Autonomy ◽  
Normative Function ◽  
Educational Concept ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
The Individual

I argue that autonomy should be interpreted as an educational concept, dependent on many educative institutions, including but not limited to government. This interpretation will improve the understanding of autonomy in relation to questions about institutional and societal legitimate authority. I aim to make plausible three connected ideas. (1) Respecting individual autonomy, properly understood, is consistent with an interest in institutions in social and political philosophy. Such interest, however, does require a broadening of questions about institutional and societal legitimacy. (2) Individual autonomy can and should be re-conceived as a multi-institutional educational notion. We must appreciate the manifold institutional process. There are diverse questions about legitimacy as institutional and societal authority that generate normative demands binding on the individual. (3) There is some uncertainty about which institutions do or should educate for autonomy. The shift to an educational, multi-institutional model of autonomy renders more questionable and probably de-emphasizes the role of blame and punishment as paradigmatically institutionalized expressions of respect for autonomy in educating for autonomy. Nonetheless, such an educational model does not eliminate concern about autonomy, blame and punishment. Rather, it broadens questions about the legitimacy of the normative function of various institutions, and of society as a whole.

Rousseau and Critical Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-55
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

InRousseau and Critical Theory, Alessandro Ferrara argues that among the modern philosophers who have shaped the world we inhabit, Rousseau is the one to whom we owe the idea that identity can be a source of normativity (moral and political) and that an identity’s potential for playing such a role rests on its capacity for being authentic. This normative idea of authenticity brings unity to Rousseau’s reflections on the negative effects of the social order, on the just political order, on education, and more generally, on ethics. It is also shown to contain important teachings for contemporary Critical Theory, contemporary views of self-constitution (Korsgaard, Frankfurt and Larmore), and contemporary political philosophy.

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