Principale artefice della diffusione del pensiero di Hans Kelsen nella cultura giuridica italiana, Norberto Bobbio ha riflettuto sulle opere del giurista austriaco fin dall’inizio del suo percorso accademico. Dapprima considerata criticamente, la dottrina pura del diritto divenne per lui, nel secondo dopoguerra, il punto di riferimento di un progetto di rinnovamento che mirava a rendere scientifiche la filosofia e la teoria del diritto, svincolandole da approcci metafisici e ideologici. La convinta difesa delle idee kelseniane non impedì tuttavia, a (...) Bobbio, di vederne anche i limiti e di leggerne criticamente i fondamenti. Le riflessioni sulla stretta connessione tra teoria della norma e teoria dell’ordinamento, sulla norma fondamentale, sulla funzione delle norme, sulla connessione tra giurisprudenza e metagiurisprudenza segnano alcune significative innovazioni suggerite da Bobbio ai cultori della teoria generale del diritto muovendo proprio da una lettura criticamente attenta delle opere kelseniane. Ma soprattutto, l’insistenza sul nesso tra diritto e potere come questione ineludibile della stessa teoria del diritto individua lo spazio nel quale il pensiero di Bobbio rivendica una sua autonoma originalità rispetto a quello di Kelsen, permettendo altresì di segnalare il sostrato ideologico della teoria pura del diritto. Il presente volume raccoglie i saggi dedicati da Bobbio alla teoria giuridica del grande pensatore austriaco. Essi si collocano nel contesto di un dialogo costante con le opere di Kelsen che ha lasciato traccia, oltre che nella teoria del diritto, anche nella teoria della democrazia e nel pacifismo giuridico del filosofo torinese. (shrink)

Among the ancients, ethics was resolved largely through the treatment of virtues. Suffice it to recall Aristotle's Etica Nicomachea, which was for many centuries a prescribed text. In our times such a treatment has almost disappeared. Today moral philosophers discuss values and choices, on both analytical and propositional levels, and their major or minor rationality, as well as discussing rules or norms and consequently rights and duties. One of the last significant writings devoted to the classic subject of virtue was (...) the second part of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten), titled The Theory of Virtue (Die Tugendlehre), the first part of which discusses the Theory of Law (Die Rechtlehre). However, Kant's ethics is especially one of duty, and more specifically of inward as distinguished from outward duty, with which the theory of law is concerned. In the former, virtue is defined as the necessary willpower to accomplish one's duty, as the moral strength required by man to fight those defects which prevent or become an obstacle to the accomplishment of duty. Kant's theory of virtue is an integral part of the ethics of duty and, as explicitly and repeatedly declared, has nothing to do with Aristotelian ethics. (shrink)

Increasingly frequent discussions in our country over the last few years on the question of morals have roused the old theme of the relation between morals and politics. Although it is an old theme, it is nevertheless a theme that remains new, which explains why no moral question, regardless of the field in which it has been raised, has ever found a definitive answer. While the issue of the relation between politics and morals is the best known, due to the (...) length of the debate, the authority of the authors who took part, the variety of the arguments put forth and the importance of the subject, it is not that different from the issue of the relation between morals and all other human activity; thus the fact that we can readily speak of the ethics of economic relations or, as often the case over the last few years, of market ethics, or sexual ethics, medical ethics, the ethics of sports and still others. In all these diverse spheres of human activity, the same problem always arises: the distinction between what is morally licit and what is morally illicit. (shrink)

I was a delicate child, and to my great embarrassment I was excused from gymnastics as a teenager owing to an illness whose identity is still mystery, at least to me. That is when I acquired my world-weariness, a permanent and invincible lethargy that was to get worse with the passing years. Tiredness as a natural state has for many years been a recurring theme, when I'm complaining about life in letters and conversation. My friends consider it a bad habit (...) of mine, almost an attempt to attract attention, and they don't take me seriously. “I'm increasingly falling apart”, I recently told an old friend. He replied with a slightly mocking air: “You've been telling me that for twenty years”. But the truth is - and it is difficult to explain this to anyone younger - that the descent into the void is long, much longer than I would have ever imagined, and slow, so slow as to appear almost imperceptible (although not to me). The descent is continuous and, what is worse, irreversible: you descend one step at a time, but having put your foot on the lower step, you know that you will never return to the higher one. I have no idea how many more downward steps are to follow. I can only be sure that their number is steadily decreasing. (shrink)

Introduzione di Pietro Rossi - Bobbio e il diritto di Gustavo Zagrebelsky - Bobbio e la politica di Massimo L. Salvadori - La teoria generale del diritto di Riccardo Guastini - La teoria generale della politica. Per la ricostruzione del "modello bobbiano" di Michelangelo Bovero - Realismo politico e dottrina dello Stato di Pier Paolo Portinaro - Le relazioni tra gli Stati di Luigi Bonanate - Gli autori - Indice dei nomi.

Pre-eminent among European political philosophers, Norberto Bobbio has throughout his career turned to the political theory of Thomas Hobbes. Gathered here for the first time are the most important of his essays which together provide both a valuable introduction to Hobbes's thought and a fresh understanding of Hobbes's place in the theory of modern politics. Tracing Hobbes's work through De Cive and Leviathan , Bobbio identifies the philosopher's relation to the tradition of natural law. That Hobbes must (...) now be understood in both this tradition as well as in the seemingly contradictory positivist tradition becomes clear for the first time in Bobbio's account. Bobbio also demonstrates that Hobbes cannot be easily labelled "liberal" or "totalitarian" in Bobbio's provocative analysis of Hobbes's justification of the state, Hobbes emerges as a true conservative. Though his primary concern is to reconstruct the inner logic of Hobbes's thought, Bobbio is also attentive to the philosopher's biography and weaves into his analysis details of Hobbes's life and world--his exile in France, his relation with the Mersenne circle, his disputes with Anglican bishops, and accusations of heresy leveled against him. The result is a revealing, thoroughly new portrait of the first theorist of the modern state. (shrink)

While lecturing on the philosophy of history at the University of Berlin, Hegel was asked by a student if the United States ought to be considered the country of the future. Obviously irritated, he answered: “As the country of the future, America does not concern me … Philosophy deals with the eternal, or with reason, and with that there is enough to do.” In his famous lecture on science as a vocation, addressed to students at the University of Munich at (...) the end of the First World War, Max Weber responded to insistent questions on his views as to the future of Germany: “The classroom is neither for demagogues nor for prophets.”. (shrink)

Estudio y an lisis del pensamiento e influencia de Thomas Hobbes en la pol tica contempor nea, consider ndolo el creador de la primera teor a del estado moderno. el reconocimiento de Hobbes son sus teor as sobre el materialismo en filosof a, el utilitarismo en moral y el despotismo en pol tica. Textos y ensayos referentes al iusnaturalismo, las sociedades parciales y la ley natural y civil en la filosof a de Hobbes.

In this important volume, the leading political theorist and philosopher Norberto Bobbio confronts some of the most enduring moral questions of our time. Written over the last two decades of the twentieth century, the essays in this volume develop some of the central themes in Bobbio's moral and political philosophy. They also reflect his longstanding civil commitment to liberty, democracy, peace and equality. The opening essay, 'In praise of meekness', analyses the virtue of meekness in its individual (...) and social aspects. It identifies the meek person with the nonviolent, and meekness with the refusal to exercise violence against anyone. Meekness, therefore, is a non-political virtue - it is the antithesis of politics. The volume also addresses the persistent classical problem of 'reason of state', as well as the more contemporary questions of tolerance and truth, racism, prejudice and ethics. The problem of evil in the modern world is also discussed. All the essays display the sensitivity and depth of understanding that characterize Bobbio's writings on current debates and historical controversies. The book will be invaluable reading for all students and scholars of politics, as well as those who are interested in the debates surrounding morals, ethics and law. (shrink)

Following the collapse of communism and the decline of Marxism, some commentators have claimed that we have reached the 'end of history' and that the distinction between Left and Right can be forgotten. In this book - which was a tremendous success in Italy - Norberto Bobbio challenges these views, arguing that the fundamental political distinction between Left and Right, which has shaped the two centuries since the French Revolution, has continuing relevance today. Bobbio explores the grounds (...) of this elusive distinction and argues that Left and Right are ultimately divided by different attitudes to equality. He carefully defines the nature of equality and inequality in relative rather than absolute terms. Left and Right is a timely and persuasively argued account of the basic parameters of political action and debate in the modern world - parameters which have remained constant despite the pace of social change. The book will be widely read and, as in Italy, it will have an impact far beyond the academic domain. (shrink)

El libro ademas de una historia personal es, un estudio sobre la politica de este siglo, escrito por uno de sus mas agudos observado-res.

The problem of the relationship between “reason” and “law” has two different meanings depending on whether the first or the second of the two terms is considered to be the most important one. These two different meanings are revealed in the expressions “law of reason” and “legal reason,” respectively. In the first expression, “reason” is meant in its strong sense, that is, the faculty of grasping the essence of things, while in the second, “reason” is meant in a weak sense, (...) the ability to reason (calculate, infer, discuss). “Law of reason” and “legal reason” correspond to two different moments of the legal universe, the creation and, respectively, the application of law. Strong reason is that which discovers the rules to be obeyed, while weak reason is that which applies rules to an actual case. The first is legislating reason, while the second is judging reason. The main topic of the debate from the Greeks to Kant was that of legislating reason. Nowadays, instead, scholars in the field are interested in judging reason. Historicism and positivism mark the end of faith in the existence of rules which are objectively just, and which may be recognized by human reason. By now we have learned to do without the eternal truths in the knowledge of the world. However painful it may be, we are forced to resign ourselves to do without evident truths in ethics, as well. (shrink)

Indice - Fonti. - Premessa. - Presentazione. - I Analogia. - II Consuetudine e fatto normativo. - III Diritto (I). - IV Diritto (II). - V Lacune del diritto. - VI Logica giuridica (I). - VII Logica giuridica (II). - VIII Marxismo e diritto. - IX Metodo. - X Norma. - XI Norma giuridica. - XII Norme secondarie. - XIII Obbligo giuridico. - XIV Principi generali di diritto. - XV Ragionamento giuridico. - XVI Ragione e diritto. - XVII Sanzione. - (...) XVIII Scienza giuridica. (shrink)