Individual Responsibility and Political Authority: Hannah Arendt at the Intersection of Moral and Political Philosophy

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Individual Responsibility

From Intuitions to Anarchism?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Common View ◽  
Libertarian Theory

AbstractWhen libertarian political philosophy attracted wide public notice in the 1970s, a common view was that the distinctive individual rights advocated in libertarian theory required grounding in a theory of ethics. Recently, this view has come under challenge. It has been argued that resort to such grounding in ethical theory is unneeded. An appeal to common sense intuitions suffices to justify libertarianism. First, a brief account of libertarianism will be presented. Then, some examples of the older, pro-grounding position will be discussed. Then, the principal defense of the newer view, Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority, will be examined. This discussion constitutes the substance of the present paper. The principal contention of the present article will be that the argument to libertarianism from intuitions does not succeed. In conclusion, it will be suggested that a return to the earlier, grounding view is indicated for philosophers who wish to defend libertarianism.

Locke and the Nature of Political Authority

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Capacity To Consent ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Will

AbstractThis paper aims to illuminate the ongoing significance of Locke's political philosophy. It argues that the legitimacy of political authority lies, according to Locke, in the extent to which it collaborates with individuals so as to allow them to be themselves more effectively, and in its answerability to the consent such individuals should thereby give it. The first section discusses how the free will inevitably asserts its authority; the second shows the inevitability of the will's incorporation of authority as a kind of prosthesis, which in turn transforms the operation of the will; and the third treats the issue of consent, arguing that Locke is less interested in explicit acts of consent than in the norm of consent, in answerability to which structures of authority should be shaped so as to honor the beings whose capacity to consent is definitive for them.

Restoring Catharine Macaulay’s Enlightenment Republicanism?

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Karen Green ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Commons

Can Catharine Macaulay’s enlightenment democratic republicanism be justified from the point of view of contemporary naturalism? Naturalist accounts of political authority tend to be realist and pessimistic, foreclosing the possibility of enlightenment. Macaulay’s utopian political philosophy relies on belief in a good God, whose existence underpins the possibility of moral and political progress. This paper attempts a restoration of her optimistic utopianism in a reconciliation, grounded in a revision of natural law, of naturalist and utopian attitudes to political theory. It is proposed that the coevolution of language, moral law, and conscience (the disposition to judge one’s own actions in the light of moral principles) can be explained as solutions to the kinds of tragedy of the commons situations facing our ancestors. Moral dispositions evolved, but, in the light of its function, law is subject to rational critique. Liberal democracy plausibly offers the best prospect for developing rationally justifiable law.

AN ESSAY ON STUDYING POWER AT THE INTERFACE OF POLITICS AND BIOLOGY

METOD ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 196-211
Author(s):  
Kirill Fokin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Mind Theory

The article addresses the problem of Cartesian dualism, understood as an attempt to separate and interconnect «mind» and «body» and related to the idea of continuity between biological and social, as well as between animal and human. As an example of how complex research of human sociality can help us to find a «bridge» between «mind» and «body», and to highlight their interplay, we describe an experience of the biopolitical research and the reconceptualization of Political Authority. The results and outputs of the research can be put in use in the field of political science: «body»-verifications are giving us new arguments to support the traditional normative «mind»-theory of Democratic Authority, we can empirically clarify the terminology and concepts, and also bring on a template to research other classical «problems» of political philosophy, testing them with the new data.

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.

The political philosophy of Hannah Arendt

Cogito ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-291
Author(s):  
Anthony Rudd ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Political

scholarly journals Ideology, Rhetoric and Argument

1993 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Weiler
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Rhetorical Criticism ◽  
Political Authority

Rhetorical criticism examines ideology as a form of strategic argumentation that functions to legitimize political authority. Ideology presents itself as political philosophy in a way that calls attention to its argumentation. Ideological arguments support claims (1) that those who wield political power represent the interests of all, and (2) that the existing social order is natural and inevitable in light of human nature. Functionally, ideology is indispensible, but perverse. Formally, ideology is argumentation that obscures its partiality under claims to universality.

scholarly journals Explorations in Authority in the Daodejing: A Daoist Engagement with Hannah Arendt

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 378
Author(s):  
Thomas Michael
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Political History ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
New Look

The present study is an attempt to liberate the thought of the Daodejing from the constraints imposed on it by both traditional Confucian exegesis and modern Western sinological methodologies in the effort to engage the thought of the work more directly. Because the language and thought of the Daodejing are somehow oddly foreign to the Western traditions of analytic philosophy and sinology, this study attempts to make the Daodejing more familiar by recourse to the tradition of continental philosophy, in this case by taking recourse to Hannah Arendt and in particular to her seminal essay on authority. Engaging Arendt’s understanding of authority, this study offers a new look at the thought of the Daodejing by discussing issues that lie at the heart of its political vision, including natural versus political authority, power and coercion, and the relation between authority, tradition, and religion. This study also attempts to situate the fate of the Daodejing’s conception of authority in Chinese political history, and it concludes with a brief look at the contemporary comparative philosophical project that brings the Daodejing into conversation with continental philosophy.

“Where the People Can Sing, the Poet Can Live”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Schulenberg
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
African American ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
The People

This chapter places Baldwin within a larger intellectual tradition of both Western political philosophy and the African American intersections with(in) it. Ulf Schulenberg’s work then narrows its focus to develop and trace Baldwin’s humanism, a humanism that argues for individual responsibility in a democratic society. Schulenberg’s essay challenges public-private dichotomies, drawing off of Baldwin’s collapsing of the interior and exterior lives, and ultimately brings to discussion Baldwin’s view of the potential of democracy should individuals all recognize their collective and individual responsibilities.

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