Four Principles of Traditional Theories of Rights

1999 ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Beth J. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Legal Theorist

This introductory chapter provides a critical analysis of the central features of traditional and contemporary theories of rights as well as criticisms of those theories. Even as human rights come under attack in one part of the globe after another, various bodies are trying to extend the protection afforded by rights to peoples—even to nonhuman animals and the environment—and also to widen the scope of rights to cover such diverse entitlements. Concurrently, especially in the United States, the concept of rights is being subjected to intensive scrutiny, and new understandings of the nature and ground of rights are emerging. Contemporary rights theory has three main sources: (1) the Christian tradition of natural law; (2) the Enlightenment theorists Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Immanuel Kant; and (3) the American legal theorist Wesley N. Hohfeld. Theories in this tradition assert or assume, inter alia, the following interrelated principles: Individualism; A priorism; Essentialism; Adversarialism.

scholarly journals The Law of Nature in Locke's Second Treatise: Is Locke a Hobbesian?

1987 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Coby
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Civil Justice ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Law

The question addressed by this essay is whether Thomas Hobbes is the true intellectual forebear of John Locke. A brief comparison of the teachings of these two authors with respect to natural justice and civil justice would seem to suggest that Locke is a determined adversary of Hobbes whose views on justice are reducible to the maxim that “might makes right.” But a reexamination of Locke's Second Treatise shows that Locke adopts this principle with hardly less thoroughness than Hobbes. Even so, an important difference remains, for Locke takes steps to disguise the grim reality of power, whereas Hobbes makes the enlightenment of people the sine qua non of his political science. Locke's departure from Hobbes is seen as an attempt to instill in the body politic a degree of justice that would not otherwise exist.

scholarly journals Management and communication ideas in the late 17th – early 19th centuries

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Denis Kislov
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
John Locke ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Order ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Government

The article examines the period from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century, when on the basis of deep philosophical concepts, a new vision of the development of statehood and human values raised. At this time, a certain re-thinking of the management and communication ideas of Antiquity and the Renaissance took place, which outlined the main promising trends in the statehood evolution, which to one degree or another were embodied in practice in the 19th and 20th centuries. A systematic approach and a comparative analysis of the causes and consequences of those years achievements for the present and the immediate future of the 21st century served as the methodological basis for a comprehensive review of the studies of that period. The scientific novelty of this study is the demonstration of the theoretical heritage complexity of the Enlightenment for the general history of management and communication ideas. The article presents an analysis of the views and concepts of the late 17th – early 18th century thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, who defend the right to freedom of communication and liberalization of relationships in the system: “person – society – state”, associated with their own understanding of the government role. French enlighteners François Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean d'Alembert, Etienne Condillac were much smaller theorists in management and communication issues, but their successful epistolary and encyclopedic communication practice, starting from the third decade of the XVIII century significantly increased the self-awareness of the masses. The influence of their ideas on the possibility of progressive development of social relations, on improving the national states manageability and on how of a new type scientists were able not only to popularize knowledge, but also to practically make it an object of public communication is shown. In this context, the author considers the importance of political and legal communication problems in the vision of Charles Louis Montesquieu and analyzes the republican governance ideas by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as an outstanding figure of the Enlightenment, who attached great importance to the forms and methods of forming of the state governance structures. At the end of the historical period under consideration, a comparative historical analysis of the most significant statements of such thinkers as Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is presented. These founders of the scientific discourse around the problems of power and state, war and peace, the effectiveness of government and communication in relations with the people laid the enduring foundations of the theoretical argumentation of two opposing views on the cardinal problem of our time – the possibility or impossibility of achieving mutually acceptable foundations of a new world order peacefully, excluding all types of hybrid wars. The general picture of the scientific and technological achievements of this period, influencing the level of understanding of the management and communication functions of the state of that time, is given in comparison with the present.

Mendelssohn, Kant, and Religious Pluralism

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 590-610
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Church And State ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Moses Mendelssohn ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Religion Of Reason ◽  
Roger Williams

AbstractTwo foremost spokesmen for the German Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, continued the defence of the separation of church and state that was at the heart of the Enlightenment in general and advocated by such great predecessors as Roger Williams and John Locke and contemporaries such as James Madison. The difference between Mendelssohn and Kant on which I focus here is that while Mendelssohn argues against his critics that Judaism is the appropriate religion for a specific people without being appropriate for all, thus implying more generally that different religions are appropriate for groups with different histories, Kant argues first that Judaism is not a genuine religion at all, second that Christianity provides the most suitable symbols or aesthetic representations of the core truths of the religion of reason, and finally that in any case all historical religion will ultimately fade away in favour of the pure religion of reason. Kant’s assumptions are tendentious and his conclusion implausible; Mendelssohn’s view that religion and differences of religion are here to stay provides a far stronger basis for genuine toleration and a strict separation of church and state.

scholarly journals Körper und politische (An‑)Ordnungen. Zur Bedeutung von Körpern in der modernen westlichen Politischen Theorie

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundula Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Politische Theorie

ZusammenfassungDie moderne westliche Politische Theorie befasst sich kaum mit Köpern; diese werden zumeist privatisiert und als natürlich bzw. vorpolitisch gesetzt. Der Text zeigt, dass Körper in der modernen Politischen Theorie allerdings nicht schlicht abwesend sind, sondern eine gewichtige politische Rolle einnehmen, denn Körper legitimieren politische Anordnungen in subtiler Weise. Durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit zentralen Denkfiguren bei Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, John Rawls und Jürgen Habermas werden drei Weisen sichtbar gemacht, wie Körper die moderne westliche Politische Theorie prägen: erstens werden Körper zur Legitimation der politischen Ordnung herangezogen, zweitens dienen sie der Bestimmung des politischen Subjektstatus und drittens wird über Körper Politik definiert. Der Text verdeutlicht, wie eine körpertheoretische Perspektive, die Körper nicht als präpolitisch, sondern als politisches Konstrukt begreift, den machtanalytischen Radius der Politischen Theorie zu erweitern in der Lage ist.

scholarly journals Enlightenment Views of Hope

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Claudia Blöser
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Probability Estimate ◽  
Standard Definition ◽  
General Account ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract This chapter discusses accounts of hope found in the works of important Enlightenment thinkers: René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. The paper’s guiding questions are: Where are discussions of hope located within these thinkers’ works? Do the authors provide an account of what hope is? Do they ascribe a certain function to hope? Most authors of the Enlightenment, with the exception of Kant, write about hope in the context of a general account of the passions. Their characterization of hope closely resembles the “standard definition” of hope in contemporary debates. According to this definition, hope consists of a desire and a belief in the possibility, but not the certainty, of the desired outcome. It turns out, however, that Descartes, Hobbes, and Hume advocate a stronger evidential condition for hope than is common today: According to their view, we do not hope for what we take to be merely possible, no matter how unlikely it is; we hope for what we take to be more likely. Kant’s account differs from the other ones in important respects: He does not treat hope as an affect and he does not require a probability estimate, but grounds hope in faith.

War for Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murad Idris
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Sayyid Qutb ◽  
The Ideal

Peace is the elimination of war, but peace also authorizes war. We are informed today that this universal ideal can only be secured by the wars that it eliminates. The paradoxical position of peace—opposed to war, authorizing war—is encapsulated by the claim that “war is for the sake of peace.” War for Peace is a genealogy of the political theoretic logics and morals of “peace.” It examines peace in political theory, as an ideal that authorizes war, in the writings of ten thinkers, from ancient to contemporary thought: Plato, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, Thomas Aquinas, Desiderius Erasmus, Alberico Gentili, Hugo Grotius, Ibn Khaldūn, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and Sayyid Quṭb. It argues that the ideal of peace functions parasitically, provincially, and polemically. In its parasitical structure, peace is accompanied by other ideals, such as friendship, security, concord, and law, which reduces it to a politics of consensus. In its provincial structure, the universalized content of peace reflects its idealizers’ desires, fears, interests, and constructions of the globe. In its polemical structure, the idealization of peace is the product of antagonisms and it then enables hostility. As idealizations of peace are disseminated across political thought, a core that valorizes peace and necessitates war insistently remains. War for Peace uncovers the genealogical basis of peace’s moralities and the political functions of its idealizations, historically and into the present.

scholarly journals The Revelation of God, East and West: Contrasting Special Revelation in Western Modernity with the Ancient Christian East

Open Theology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan A. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
East And West ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Special Revelation

AbstractThe questions of whether God reveals himself; if so, how we can know a purported revelation is authentic; and how such revelations relate to the insights of reason are discussed by John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, G. W. Leibniz, and Immanuel Kant, to name a few. Yet, what these philosophers say with such consistency about revelation stands in stark contrast with the claims of the Christian East, which are equally consistent from the second century through the fourteenth century. In this essay, I will compare the modern discussion of special revelation from Thomas Hobbes through Johann Fichte with the Eastern Christian discussion from Irenaeus through Gregory Palamas. As we will see, there are noteworthy differences between the two trajectories, differences I will suggest merit careful consideration from philosophers of religion.

scholarly journals O Contratualismo e seu legado nas teorias de Relações Internacionais: um olhar a partir do Brasil

Leviathan ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Gills Vilar-Lopes ◽  
Lucas Moura Maximo ◽  
Theo Antônio Rodrigues Sant'Ana
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes

Este trabalho apresenta o pensamento contratualista da Teoria Política Moderna, com o objetivo geral de enfatizar alguns de seus reflexos nas Relações Internacionais. Metodologicamente, utiliza-se o estilo de pesquisa qualitativo, para selecionar somente obras contratualistas que impactam as teorias de Relações Internacionais. Esse recorte é feito a partir de epistemologia aplicada no Brasil. Assim, analisam-se as obras contratualistas de Baruch de Espinosa, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke e Thomas Hobbes, com o intuito de, comparativamente, expor sua relação com as teorias internacionalistas.

Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Wolff ◽  
G. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
David Hume ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Volume Editor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of History

G. A. Cohen was one of the leading political philosophers of recent times. He first came to wide attention in 1978 with the prize-winning book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In subsequent decades his published writings largely turned away from the history of philosophy, focusing instead on equality, freedom, and justice. However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures. Starting with a chapter centered on Plato, but also discussing the pre-Socratics as well as Aristotle, the book moves to social contract theory as discussed by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, and then continues with chapters on Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The book also contains some previously published but uncollected papers on Marx, Hobbes, and Kant, among other figures. The collection concludes with a memoir of Cohen written by the volume editor who was a student of Cohen's. A hallmark of the lectures is Cohen's engagement with the thinkers he discusses. Rather than simply trying to render their thought accessible to the modern reader, he tests whether their arguments and positions are clear, sound, and free from contradiction. Ultimately, his lectures teach us not only about some of the great thinkers in the history of moral and political philosophy, but also about one of the great thinkers of our time: Cohen himself.

1. Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher ◽  
Paul Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Life ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Hugo Grotius

This volume introduces a canon of major political thinkers from ancient Greece to the present, including Socrates and the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Hugo Grotius, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, and Michel Foucault. The text focuses on the ways that these thinkers have shaped the intellectual architecture of our modern conceptions of the scope of politics and its place in social life. This introductory chapter discusses the origins of the study of political thought as a distinct activity and describes four sets of considerations that shape approaches to the study of political thought and help answer the question of why we should study it. It also analyses the problem of so-called perennial questions and the attempt to explain and defend what it is that makes a book a ‘classic’ text.

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