State and Morality According to Spinoza

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Alexandre Matheron
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Relationship

Though Spinoza certainly argues that a well-ordered political society is necessary for human beings to achieve lasting happiness and goodness, he does not, like other philosophers, argue that society exists for the sake of moral ends. In this essay, Matheron reconstructs Spinoza’s views on the relationship between State and morality all the while accounting for the illusion that has caused other philosophers to mistake the State as having an essentially moral function. Spinoza avoids such an error by referring to his critique of teleology found in the Appendix to Part I of the Ethics: we make an error by transforming imagined norms into ontological norms that we project onto nature. Philosophers from Aquinas to Hobbes thus mistake the rational desires of philosophers for ontological models that ought to dictate the formation of political society. Spinoza’s position, however, is markedly different: humans do not inherently desire one thing or the other, but rather pursue only that towards which they tend here and now. That political society necessarily arises, Matheron argues, is due not to the intervention of a utilitarian calculus or the imposition of an artificial contract, but rather under the influence of a common fear or common hope.

Bastard Feudalism and the Framing of Thirteenth-Century England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.

Fellow Creatures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good For ◽  
Treat All ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This book argues that we are obligated to treat all sentient animals as “ends in themselves.” Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, it offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings who have a good. Drawing on a revised version of Kant’s argument for the value of humanity, it argues that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends in ourselves in two senses. As autonomous beings, we claim to be ends in ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. As beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends in ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of reciprocal moral lawmaking. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient animal as something of absolute importance. The book also argues that human beings are not more important than, superior to, or better off than the other animals. It criticizes the “marginal cases” argument and advances a view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. It offers a non-utilitarian account of the relationship between the good and pleasure, and addresses questions about the badness of extinction and about whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets.

State and religion in a revolutionary era: perspectives and demands of the Islamic awakening†

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-340
Author(s):  
Ridwan Al-Sayyid
Keyword(s):  
Political Islam ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Main Disadvantage ◽  
The Relationship

This paper tackles the relationship between Islam and the state in light of the ongoing revolutions. It focuses on two perspectives: the Islamists' claim that the Shari'a and not the umma (community) are the source of legitimacy in the evolving regimes; and that it is the duty of the state to protect religion and apply the Shari'a. The main disadvantage of these propositions is that they preclude the Umma both from political power and Shari'a, thus pitting it against these two assets which become manipulated to its disadvantage by those holding power. On the other hand, an open-minded and reformist Islamic perspective believes in people regaining the prerogative to rule themselves, guided by their intellect and the public good. The main call for the Arab uprisings is to quit political Islam, which seems to be the major threat to religion, and dangerously divisive for societies.

Jainism in Danger? Temple entry and the rhetoric of religion and reform in post-colonial India

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
MANISHA SETHI
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Open The Doors ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract A bitter debate broke out in the Digambar Jain community in the middle of the twentieth century following the passage of the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act in 1947, which continued until well after the promulgation of the Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955. These laws included Jains in the definition of ‘Hindu’, and thus threw open the doors of Jain temples to formerly Untouchable castes. In the eyes of its Jain opponents, this was a frontal and terrible assault on the integrity and sanctity of the Jain dharma. Those who called themselves reformists, on the other hand, insisted on the closeness between Jainism and Hinduism. Temple entry laws and the public debates over caste became occasions for the Jains not only to examine their distance—or closeness—to Hinduism, but also the relationship between their community and the state, which came to be imagined as predominantly Hindu. This article, by focusing on the Jains and this forgotten episode, hopes to illuminate the civilizational categories underlying state practices and the fraught relationship between nationalism and minorities.

The Life of Law and the Law of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Law ◽  
Written Law ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter analyzes a large swath of Plato’s Statesman (287b–311c) in order to ask, with “Plato’s Pharmacy” in the background, about the Stranger’s claim that law—and especially written law, since writing is the essence of law—is at once inferior to rule without law and yet, in a world without divine rulers, absolutely necessary for human governance. This chapter returns to many of the insights from Chapter 2 on the myth of the two ages, since what that myth demonstrated was the desirability and yet impossibility of an age in which a truly divine being rules over human beings and the concomitant necessity of trying to imitate that age through laws. Once again, we see that what is at issue in the relationship between the two ages, as well as in the relationship between a regime without law and a regime with it, are two different valences or valuations of life—the values of pure life, fecundity, spontaneity, and memory, on the one hand, and the values of death in life, forgetting in memory, and sterility in fecundity, on the other.

scholarly journals Moving Toward Neo-Totalitarianism: A Political-Sociological Analysis of the Evolution of Administrative Absorption of Society in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoguang Kang
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Nonprofit Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
State Capitalism ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Three Phases

AbstractChina recently promulgated and revised a number of laws, regulations and measures to regulate the nonprofit sector. All these administrative efforts increase support for Chinese nonprofit organizations (NPOs) on the one hand and put unprecedented pressure on them on the other. The seemingly contradictory effects are actually based on the same logic of Administrative Absorption of Society (AAS). This article proposes three phases in the development of AAS: an subconscious phase, a theory-modeling phase, and an institutionalization phase. The institutionalization of AAS has led to the rise of neo-totalitarianism, which is featured by state capitalism, unlimited government, and a mixed ideology of Marxism and Confucianism. Neo-totalitarianism further strengthens AAS and has begun to reshape the relationship between the state and the nonprofit sector. This article analyzes China’s nonprofit policymaking from a sociopolitical perspective, and clarifies the context, the characteristics, and the evolution of laws and policies in the nonprofit sector in macrocosm.

scholarly journals Occurrence of ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) on human hosts, in three municipalities in the State of Pará, Brazil

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolau Maués Serra-Freire
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
Dominant Species ◽  
Rhipicephalus Sanguineus ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Agricultural Workers ◽  
Average Intensity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Transversal Line ◽  
First Case

Assuming the existence of tick parasitism in humans in the State of Pará, an aggregate observational study was developed along a transversal line in three cities of the State, during two years. Interviews and examinations of 2,160 townspeople and tourists were carried out, without discrimination of ethnic, sex, age, or social status, and classified for effects analyzed for four bands of age, six types of activities in the society, and two sexes. Larvae, nymphs, and adults of ticks had been identified with cases of parasitism involving six species, of the genus Amblyomma, the genus Ixodes, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, Anocentor nitens, and Ornithodorus talaje (the first case registered in Pará), infecting human beings. Adults and agricultural workers were most frequently attacked, followed by students. A. cajennense and R. sanguineus are the species most frequent in the parasitism affecting humans, and A. cajennense is the dominant species. The statistical prevalence was largest in Cachoeira do Arari, Ilha do Marajó. In Santarém the greatest average intensity of parasitism was for R. sanguineus, and in the other locations it wasfor A. cajennense. Agricultural workers faced the greatest risk from parasitism, and to place in practice elementary measures of prevention would reduce by 25% the number of cases.

scholarly journals Theorizing Research Ethics for the Study of Psychological Phenomena from Within Relational Everyday Life

Human Arenas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Hilppö ◽  
Niklas Alexander Chimirri ◽  
Antti Rajala
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Special Section ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The People ◽  
Current Psychological ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Common World

Abstract How to investigate psychologically relevant phenomena in the most ethical ways possible is an enduring question for researchers not only in psychology but also in adjacent fields that study human subjectivity. Once acknowledging that both researchers and the people whose lives they want to study are human beings acting in a common world, also inhabited by non-human beings, the relationship between researchers and participants touches upon fundamental questions not only about what it means to do research together, but also what it means to conduct life in this world together. This implies that questions regarding what counts as ethical conduct need to be accentuated and also profoundly re-drawn given the encompassing complexity of these relations. In this article, we will shortly review the theoretical foundations and associated problematics of the dominant view of the researcher-researched relationship in current psychological (and other) research ethics. We then present and discuss what we mean by a relational ethical position from within practice and for practice. We will also shortly introduce how the other contributions to this special section advance the theoretical debates on research ethics.

War and the State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ball
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
British State ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter characterizes the relationship of the British state to war over the long term. It analyses two epistemic turning points for the war–state relationship, one occurring in the 1860s, the other in the 1970s. It explains the importance of war to the British state under the ‘fiscal security’ compromise.The chapter traces the long and uneven emergence of the ‘welfare state’ as a successor to the ‘warfare state’. It argues that the ‘warfare state’ paradigm loses much of its empirical and conceptual force if it were to be extended beyond 1970. The relationship of the state to war changed so fundamentally at that point that history, the chapter suggests, ceased to be a useful guide for future conduct.

Between ethics and politics: Gramsci's theory of intellectuals

Modern Italy ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Martin
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Revolutionary Party ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ethics And Politics

SummaryThis article examines Gramsci's theory of intellectuals in the light of Bauman's distinction between ‘legislators’ and ‘interpreters’. By distinguishing descriptive and prescriptive dimensions to Gramsci's theory, it is possible to see a tension between the dual ethical and political functions that he attributes to ‘organic intellectuals’. In the one, Gramsci effectively deconstructs the intellectual's role as the bearer of universal knowledge, while in the other he reconstructs that role through an emphasis on the revolutionary party. It is argued that the tensions in Gramsci's theory stem from his attachment to a peculiarly modern conception of the relationship between intellectuals, culture and the state.

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