Civic Republicanism has returned to the fore in the effort to address critical contemporary issues such as citizenship, economic expansion and global interdependence. It is also one of the most important topics in political philosophy Honohan here examines its central themes. Part One gives an account of the origins and development of civic republicanism. She explores the notion and sustainability of its historical tradition from Aristotle and Cicero through to Machiavelli, Rousseau and Madison, and highlights its contemporary revival (...) in the works of Hannah Arendt and Charles Taylor. She discusses the theory's core concepts- civic virtue, freedom, participation and recognition- their roots in ancient Greece, and how they can be traced in its pattern of re-emergence. In Part Two, Honohan explores the contemporary attraction of civic republicanism, and assesses its political and institutional implications. What is the nature of the common good? What does it mean to put public before private interests? And what does freedom mean in a republican state? She also addresses the relevance of civic republicanism to cultural diversity, environmental risk and economic globalization. (shrink)
Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alternative to classical liberal theories of non-interference. As a theory of geopolitical affairs, however, his republicanism fails to fulfill this egalitarian promise in ways that closely echo John Rawls’s liberal law of peoples. Pettit’s republican law of peoples is ill equipped to address structural sources of transnational and global domination because it exaggerates the ontological separateness of peoples, it overvalues the self-sufficiency of states for purposes of (...) achieving internal non-domination, and it conceives of domination too narrowly as an evil that must be intentionally or negligently imposed by identifiable agents. (shrink)
Certain English writers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, whom scholars often associate with classical republicanism, were not, in fact, hostile to liberalism. Indeed, these thinkers contributed to a synthesis of liberalism and modern republicanism. As this book argues, Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, Henry Neville, Algernon Sidney, and John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the co-authors of a series of editorials entitled Cato's Letters, provide a synthesis that responds to the demands of both republicans and liberals by offering (...) a politically engaged citizenry as well as the protection of individual rights. The book also reinterprets the writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes to show that each contributed in a fundamental way to the formation of this liberal republicanism. (shrink)
Republicanism and Political Theory is the first book to offer a comprehensive and critical survey of republican political theory. Critically assesses its historical credentials, conceptual coherence, and normative proposals Brings together original contributions from leading international scholars in an interactive way Provides the reader with valuable insight into new debates taking place in republican political theory.
In this book, Spinoza's political theory is examined through an analysis of his engagement with the practical politics of his day in the United Provinces. 17th-century Dutch history, political life and political thought, and in particular Dutch republicanism, represent an important context in which to discuss Spinoza's political philosophy. The significance of Spinoza's republicanism is highlighted in a comparison with English political thought and its presuppositions in the 17th century.
Liberty after Liberalism frees the concept of the active citizen from both the territorial confines of the nation-state and the limits imposed by republican, city-state models. Lawrence Quill advances a theory of global republicanism, one that is able to respond directly to the changing realities of political life. By adopting a "publicly ironic" approach to politics, Quill revives the idea of public freedom within a global context thereby providing an important supplement to contemporary theories of cosmopolitan democracy.
It is argued that only the embedding of Rawlsian political liberalism within a republican framework secures the content of his view against Cohen's critique of Rawlsian special incentives. That content is fully specified in the form of a property-owning democracy; only this background set of institutions (or one functionally equivalent to it) will secure the stability of Rawls's egalitarian principles. A liberal-republicanism, rather than political liberalism alone, offers deeper grounding for our commitment to a property-owning democracy as a privileged (...) political economy for the expression of our egalitarian ideals. (shrink)
This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many attractions, and (...) makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at what the implementation of the ideal would imply for substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of relations between state and society founded upon civility and trust. Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, but also a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology. (shrink)
This highly acclaimed volume brings together some of the world's foremost historians of ideas to consider Machiavelli's political thought in the larger context of the European republican tradition, and the image of Machiavelli held by other republicans. An international team of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (notably law, philosophy, history and the history of political thought) explore both the immediate Florentine context in which Machiavelli wrote, and the republican legacy to which he contributed.
. What distinguishes Pangle's study from the dozens of books which have challenged or elaborated upon the republican revision is the sharpness with which he ...
Vice crimes, crimes prohibited in part because they are viewed as morally corrupting, engage legal theorists because they reveal importantly contrasting views between liberals and virtue-centered theorists on the very limits of legitimate state action. Yet advocates and opponents alike focus on the role law can play in suppressing personal vice; the role of law is seen as suppressing licentiousness, sloth, greed etc. The most powerful advocates of the position that the law must nurture good character often draw on Aristotelian (...) theories of virtue to ground the connection between law and virtue. While Aristotle believed that law and character were linked, it is ironic to note that he did not argue for the position evidenced in our vice laws that law was likely to succeed in instilling virtue. Indeed, Aristotle thought the project of using law to instill private virtue was nearly certain to fail. Aristotle’s deep concern was not for the way law protected private virtue within each person but the way law had to protect civic virtue between citizens. This article argues that even from its foundations, the project of vice crimes as moral instruction is misconceived. The use of law for overly instrumental or narrow reasons opens law and legal institutions to abuse and factionalism. Lawyers, judges and others specially connected to law must first and foremost aim at addressing “legal vices,” vices internal to the institutions of law. Particularly, increasing factionalism and instrumentalism which disconnects law from the pursuit of the common good threatens our civic bonds. Most importantly, where civic bonds are disrupted, citizens have no reason to remain law abiding. The striking lesson, captured both in ancient philosophy and modern history, is that when legal vices grow unchecked and factions use the law to pursue narrow interests, ultimately law abidingness is corrupted and interest groups harm themselves as much as others. (shrink)
This article discusses Philip Pettit’s neo-republicanism in light of the criterion of self-sustenance: the requirement that a political theory be capable of serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralist democracy. It argues that this criterion can only be satisfied by developing an adequate politics of virtue. Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as non-domination, and he does not say much about the virtues of citizens or the policies the state may employ to encourage their (...) development. In order to explain the motivation to comply with republican laws that promote non-domination, Pettit relies on the phenomenon of civility and the mechanism of the intangible hand. But to understand what underlies an adequate level of robust civility one needs to focus on the more basic phenomenon of personal virtue. Policies that aim to promote non-domination should take into account the need to cultivate virtue among citizens, as well as the full range of conditions that favor its exercise. (shrink)
University of Virginia, USA, lel3f{at}virginia.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> The strategy of this article is to consider republicanism in contrast with liberalism. We focus on three aspects of this contrast: republicanism’s emphasis on ‘social goods’ under various conceptualizations of that category; republicanism’s emphasis on political participation as an essential element of the ‘good life’; and republicanism’s distinctive understanding of freedom (following the lines developed by Pettit). In each case, we are (...) skeptical that what republicanism offers is superior to the liberal alternative and indicate the grounds for that skepticism. Key Words: republicanism • liberalism • social goods • political participation • republican freedom. (shrink)
It is clear that a revival of republicanism is under way, but it is not clear that the republican tradition truly speaks to contemporary concerns. In particular, it is not clear that republicanism has anything of value to say about economic matters in the early 21st century. I respond to this worry by delineating the main features of a neo-republican civic economy that is, I argue, reasonably coherent and attractive. Such an economy will preserve the market, while constraining (...) it to serve public purposes, and promote what John Rawls calls a ‘property-owning democracy’. To accomplish these ends, a civic economy is likely to concern itself with the character of work and the workplace, to take steps to preserve and protect the sense of community or publicity, to levy an inheritance tax and a progressive consumption tax, and to provide some kind of ‘social’ or ‘civic’ minimum of support to all citizens. Key Words: republicanism • equality • self-government • deliberative politics • civic virtue • publicity • markets • property-owning democracy • basic income • inheritance tax • consumption tax. (shrink)
Scholars loosely affiliated with the "Cambridge School" (e.g., Pocock, Skinner, Viroli, and Pettit) accentuate rule of law, common good, class equilibrium, and non-domination in Machiavelli's political thought and republicanism generally but underestimate the Florentine's preference for class conflict and ignore his insistence on elite accountability. The author argues that they obscure the extent to which Machiavelli is an anti-elitist critic of the republican tradition, which they fail to disclose was predominantly oligarchic. The prescriptive lessons these scholars draw from (...) class='Hi'>republicanism for contemporary politics reinforce rather than reform the "senatorial," electorally based, and socioeconomically agnostic republican model (devised by Machiavelli's aristocratic interlocutor, Guicciardini, and refined by Montesquieu and Madison) that permits common citizens to acclaim but not determine government policies. Cambridge School textual interpretations and practical proposals have little connection with Machiavelli's "tribunate," class-specific model of popular government elaborated in The Discourses, one that relies on extra-electoral accountability techniques and embraces deliberative popular assemblies. (shrink)
A Theory of Freedom and Government has provided a systematic basis for republican theory in the idea of freedom as non-domination. Can a pure republican view, which confines itself to the normative resources thus afforded, adequately address the full range of issues of social justice? This article argues that while there are many sorts of structural injustice with which a pure republican view can well cope, unfair disparities in political influence, of the kind that Rawls labeled failures of the ‘fair (...) value’ of the equal political liberties, cannot be well addressed by a pure republican view. In arguing the point, the article assesses the reach not only of the core ideal of freedom as non-domination itself, but also of three further layers in Pettit’s republican theory: its suggestion that domination is to be minimized, its account of a set of institutions needed to restrict domination, and its requirement that, to prevent governments from having the power to act arbitrarily and so to dominate, they be made responsive to the common good. Some of these further conceptual resources are shown to be of no help in addressing unfair disparities in political influence, while the ones that are promising are so only because they rely on distinctively liberal ideals, and so depart from a pure republican basis. Key Words: republicanism • liberalism • justice • common good • non-domination • fair value • Philip Pettit • John Rawls. (shrink)
Republicanism may seem to be a nostalgic politics of place that is incapable of responding to the challenges of globalization.The burden of this essay is to demonstrate that this view is both right and wrong - right in regarding republicanism as a politics of place, butwrong in thinking that such a form of politics is irrelevant to an increasingly interconnected world. On the contrary, the republican concern for place provides the basis for the responsible, public-spirited action that cosmopolitan (...) theorists need to sustain their visions of global politics. (shrink)
The political liberalism of Rawls and Larmore is presented as uniquely able to solve the problems of modern political theory. In the face of a plurality of reasonable comprehensive conceptions of the good, a legitimate liberal state can legislate solely on the basis of a modular conception of justice affirmed from within each reasonable conception. However, it is argued that this view, while restrictive, has to permit the promotion of its own pre-conditions. This demanding duty of civic restraint requires citizens (...) who have been educated for citizen virtue in the context of associational life in civil society. This challenge to expand liberalism to cover its own preconditions at the level of a moral background culture, has usually been levelled by one kind of republican/communitarian (Charles Taylor) or so-called "ethical liberals". It can be met by the adoption of a liberal republicanism that operates within the constraints of Rawls' political liberalism but nevertheless explains and justifies why such a view must treat traditional republican themes such as active citizenship and the importance of associational life. The solution lies in treating these values as option values, in a sense that is explained. (shrink)
Philip Pettit's neo-Roman republicanism comprises a conceptual account of ?republican freedom? and an institutional account that shows how republican freedom can best be promoted institutionally. If we accept a very slightly amended version of Petit's conceptual account, then his institutional account fares inadequately in terms of four ?problems? to which the conceptual account commits him. An institutional amalgam of Pettit's institutional account and a deliberative democratic public sphere of the sort advanced by john Dryzek ? what I call the (...) deliberative republic ? looks to fare considerably better. (shrink)
Some theorists, worried about liberalism’s potential as a foundation for public health ethics, suggest that republicanism provides a better background of justification for public health policies, interventions, etc. In this article, this suggestion is put to the test, and it is argued that (i) contemporary (civic) republicanism and liberalism are not nearly as opposed as it is sometimes suggested, and that (ii) the kind of republicanism which one leading scholar in the field, Bruce Jennings, as an alternative (...) to liberalism, does not reflect the contemporary understanding of republicanism as held by, e.g. Phillip Pettit et al. (shrink)
The singular position of Montesquieu's political philosophy seems to raise the question: Isn't the opposition between republicanism and liberalism a largely artificial one? On the one hand, the description of the republican vivere civile in the Spirit of the Laws testifies to the important ties that exist between Montesquieu and the tradition of ?civic humanism?. However, this apparent theoretical proximity between Montesquieu and the British Neo-Harringtonians ought not to be taken too far, obscuring the deep divergences that differentiate their (...) respective positions, notably when it comes to the interpretation of history. Montesquieu's break from the republican tradition is exemplified by his rejection of its conception of freedom rooted in the citizens' necessary participation in power. But in the end, this does not enable us to conclude that he subscribes to a purely liberal theory. The British model shows that even if direct participation in the exercise of power is not necessary for the existence of liberty, a certain level of civic involvement and public awareness is needed. The liberal opposition between positive and negative liberty, political autonomy and enjoyment of rights without interference must therefore be transcended. (shrink)
A growing sense of the exhaustion of both liberalism and Marxism has fueled a revival of interest in civic republicanism among historians, political theorists, and social commentators. This turn is evaluated via an examination of the normative implications off. G. A. Pocock's account of civic republicanism. Arguing that what is at issue between liberals and republicans has been misunderstood by both sides in the debate, the author shows that the turn to republicanism fails to address the most (...) vexing problems liberalism confronts in the modern world, and that it is and has been compatible with much of what critics of liberalism dislike. He argues, further, that the civic republican view involves an instrumental attitude to outsiders that cannot be justified in today's world and has other unattractive dimensions of which too little account has been taken by defenders and detractors alike. (shrink)
The mid-thirteenth-century theorist and rhetorician Brunetto Latini proposed a vigorous republican account of the art of government and the nature of community in his encyclopedic treatise, Li Livres dou Tresor. The interpretation of Latini's republicanism has been heavily based on its literary sensibilities, its attachment to rhetoric, and its praise for classical civic virtues. But Latini deserves to be classified as a republican insofar as he founds social and political order upon commercial principles-the production and exchange of material goods (...) for profit-and consequent economic defense of republican government. Hence, the example of Latini challenges one of the principal remaining barriers that supposedly separates medieval defenses of republicanism from Renaissance versions. The essay contends that Latini holds that self-governing institutions depend upon and are especially well suited to sustain a society whose conception of the common good includes the creation and exchange of those material necessities required for physical welfare and comfort. (shrink)
Guardians of Republicanism analyses the political and intellectual history of Renaissance Florence-republican and princely-by focusing on five generations of the Valori family, each of which played a dynamic role in the city's political and cultural life. The Valori were early and influential supporters of the Medici family, but were also crucial participants in the city's periodic republican revivals throughout the Renaissance. Mark Jurdjevic examines their political struggles and conflicts against the larger backdrop of their patronage and support of the (...) Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino, the radical Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola, and Niccolò Machiavelli, the premier political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Each of these three quintessential Renaissance reformers and philosophers relied heavily on the patronage of the Valori, who evolved an innovative republicanism based on a hybrid fusion of the classical and Christian languages of Florentine communal politics. Jurdjevic's study thus illuminates how intellectual forces-humanist, republican, and Machiavellian-intersected and directed the politics and culture of the Florentine Renaissance. (shrink)
This paper is critically engaged in the elaboration of the securitization and stigmatization of migration and Islam in the West, which is believed to be leading to the rise of Islamophobic sentiments and to the backlash of both multiculturalism and republicanism. Migration has been framed as a source of fear and instability for the nation-states in the West in a way that constructs ‘communities of fear’. It will be claimed that both securitization and Islamophobia have recently been employed by (...) the neo-liberal states as a form of governmentality in order to control the masses in ethno-culturally and religiously diverse societies at the expense of deepening the already existing cleavages between majority and minorities with Muslim background. (shrink)
This article shows through Sismonde de Sismondi’s work how peculiarly modern issues like the revolution, equal political rights (universal suffrage) and an industrial and commercial society contributed to renewing the identity of republicanism. That renewal took place in Europe, after the French Revolution, and in a direct confrontation with democracy rather than liberalism. The problem in relation to which Sismondi reflected on the institutions of political liberty, the republican constitution and the role of individual liberty was the unstoppable growth (...) of equality, political and social. In his work, republicanism was intended as an answer against the emergent democratic transformation of society, with a role of moderating equality, dividing and bridling popular sovereignty and containing the immoderate propensities of democracy. The modern threat to liberty did not originate from the power of the few or of the one, but from that of the many. It originated in the majoritarian principle on which democracy relies necessarily. This principle, the republican Sismondi argued, contains the seed of the suppression of minorities, that is to say of individual liberty. (shrink)
Interest in republicanism as a political theory has burgeoned in recent years, but its implications for the understanding of law have remained largely unexplored. Legal Republicanism is the first book to offer a comprehensive, critical survey of the potential for creating republican accounts of fundamental issues in law and legal theory. -/- Bringing together contributors with backgrounds in political and legal philosophy, the essays in the volume assess republicanism's historical traditions, conceptual coherence, and normative proposals. The collection (...) offers a valuable insight into new debates taking place in republican political and legal theory. It also analyses potential republican approaches to concrete issues arising in areas of law such as criminal, constitutional and international law. Finally, the book includes comparisons between republican legal traditions and how they react to contemporary challenges. The book will be of value to political and democratic theorists, to legal philosophers and constitutional theorists, and all those interested in the legitimacy of decision-making in national and international settings. (shrink)
The republican revival in political philosophy, political theory, and legal theory has produced an impressive range of novel interpretations of the historical figures of the republican tradition. It has also given rise to a variety of contemporary neo-republican theories that build on its historical themes. Although there have been some feminist discussions of its historical representatives, neo-republicanism has not generated a great deal of enthusiasm among feminists. The present paper examines Phillip Pettit's theory of freedom as nondomination in order (...) to assess its potential usefulness for those with feminist goals. It defends Pettit's account of interpersonal domination from certain feminist objections, but argues that his account of state domination needs to be amended if it is fully to protect the interests of women and other groups. (shrink)
This is the first comprehensive analysis of late eighteenth-century Irish patriot thought and its development into 1790s radical republicanism. The book is a history of the rich political ideas and languages that emerged from the tumultuous events and colourful individuals of this pivotal period in Irish history. Patriots, radicals, and republicans played key roles in the movements for free trade, legislative independence, parliamentary reform, Catholic relief and independence from Britain; and many of their ideas helped precipitate the rebellion in (...) 1798. Stephen Small explains the ideological background to these issues, sheds new light on the origins of Irish republicanism, and places late eighteenth-century Irish political thought in the wider context of British, Atlantic, and European ideas. -/- Dr Small argues that Irish patriotism, radicalism, and republicanism were constructed out of five key political 'languages': Protestant superiority, ancient constitutionalism, commercial grievance, classical republicanism, and natural rights. These political languages, which were Irish dialects of languages shared with the English-speaking and European world, combined in the late 1770s to construct the classic expression of Irish patriotism. This patriotism was full of contradictions, containing the seeds of radical reform, Catholic emancipation, and republican separatism - as well as a defence of Protestant Ascendancy. -/- Over the next two decades, the American and French Revolutions, the reform movement, popular politicization, Ascendancy reaction, and Catholic political revival disrupted and transformed these languages, causing the fragmentation of a broad patriot consensus and the emergence from it of radicalism and republicanism. These developments are explained in terms of tensions and interactions between Protestant assumptions of Catholic inferiority, the increasing popularity of natural rights, and the enduring centrality of classical republican concepts of virtue to all types of patriot thought. -/- . (shrink)
The first comprehensive analysis of the philosophical issues raised by the hijab controversy in France, this book also conducts a dialogue between contemporary ...
The significance of Machiavelli's political thinking for the development of modern republicanism is a matter of great controversy. This reassessment examines the character of Machiavelli's own republicanism by charting his influence on Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, David Hume, the baron de Montesquieu, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. Concluding that although Machiavelli himself was not liberal, Paul Rahe argues that he did, nonetheless, set (...) the stage for the emergence of liberal republicanism in England. (shrink)
Neo-Republicans claim that Hobbes’s constitutional indifferentism (the view that we have no profound reason to prefer one constitutional form over another) is driven exclusively by a reductive understanding of liberty as non-interference. This paper argues that constitutional indifferentism is grounded in an analysis of the institutional presuppositions of well-functioning government that does not depend on a conception of liberty as mere non-interference. Hence, indifferentism cannot be refuted simply by pointing out that non-domination is a distinctive ideal of freedom. This result (...) does not suffice to defend the strong version of indifferentism put forward by Hobbes. But it does point to an important limitation of neo-republican constitutional theory: Neo-republicanism will amount to a distinctive paradigm of constitutional thought only if it is understood in a way that conflicts with Hobbes’s understanding of the institutional presuppositions of well-functioning government. It is doubtful that we have good reason to embrace neo-republicanism, so understood. (shrink)
Modern republicanism - distinguished from its classical counterpart by its commercial character and jealous distrust of those in power, by its use of representative institutions, and by its employment of a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances - owes an immense debt to the republican experiment conducted in England between 1649, when Charles I was executed, and 1660, when Charles II was crowned. Though abortive, this experiment left a legacy in the political science articulated both (...) by its champions, John Milton, Marchamont Nehdham, and James Harrington, and by its sometime opponent and ultimate supporter Thomas Hobbes. This volume examines these four thinkers, situates them with regard to the novel species of republicanism first championed more than a century before by Niccolo Machiavelli, and examines the debt that he and they owed the Epicurean tradition in philosophy and the political science crafted by the Arab philosophers Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. (shrink)
Feizi’s philosophy is usually represented as an amoral autocracy where the ruler is the sole political power and runs the state by controlling the people through rewards and punishments. While his system is formally autocratic, this article argues that the purpose behind this system bears some similarity to the republican political ideal of non-domination. In this interpretation, Han Feizi makes the ruler the sole power to mitigate the danger of the state being dominated by ministers. He does not employ republican (...) institutions, but attempts to discourage the ruler from using his power capriciously in order to increase order and security in the state, which are his ultimate political values. Han Feizi is not a republican, but this similarity suggests that when revised for today’s very different circumstances, Han Feizian philosophy’s focus on impartial law can make a contribution to contemporary Chinese political thought. (shrink)
Historically, republicans were of different minds about markets: some, such as Rousseau, reviled them, while others, like Adam Smith, praised them. The recent republican resurgence has revived this issue. Classical liberals such as Gerald Gaus contend that neo-republicanism is inherently hostile to markets, while neo-republicans like Richard Dagger and Philip Pettit reject this characterization—though with less enthusiasm than one might expect. I argue here that the right republican attitude toward competitive markets is celebratory rather than acquiescent and that (...) class='Hi'>republicanism demands such markets for the same reason it requires the rule of law: because both are essential institutions for protecting individuals from arbitrary interference. I reveal how competition restrains—and in the limit, even eradicates—market power and thereby helps us realize “market freedom,” i.e., freedom as non-domination in the context of economic exchange. Finally, I show that such freedom necessitates “Anglo-Nordic” economic policies. (shrink)
IT PASSES MY understanding how anyone with even a grain of sense can feel pleasure at the prospect of a republican Australia: an Australia, that is to say, even more "base, common and popular" than it is now. Anyway, I am myself for the British connection. In my World XI, Britons - Shakespeare, Purcell, Newton, Hume and Darwin - would be the first five picked. Either to the British exclusively, or to them more than to any other nation, the (...) world owes, and Australia especially owes, whatever it has of scientific knowledge, sober philosophy, stable government without oppression - and cricket. (shrink)
Abstract Current debates about patriotism and nationalism have so far failed adequately to take into account the historical meaning of republican patriotism. For classical and modern republican theorists, love of country is a charitable love of the republic and of its citizens. It is an attachment to the political values of republican liberty and to the culture based upon them. As such, it is a theoretical alternative to both civic and ethnic nationalism, and it is not at all confined within (...) the bygone experience of city?states. (shrink)
This is the first comprehensive study in English of Bruno Bauer, a leading Hegelian philosopher of the 1840s. Inspired by the philosophy of Hegel, Bauer led an intellectual revolution that influenced Marx and shaped modern secular humanism. In the process he offered a republican alternative to liberalism and socialism, criticized religious and political conservatism and set out the terms for the development of modern mass and industrial society. Based on in-depth archival research this book traces the emergence of republican political (...) thought in Germany before the revolutions of 1848. Professor Moggach examines Bauer's republicanism and his concept of infinite self-consciousness. He also explores the more disturbing aspects of Bauer's critique of modernity, such as his anti-Semitism. As little else is available on Bauer even in German this book will be eagerly sought out by professionals in political philosophy, political science, and intellectual history. (shrink)
Republicans hold that freedom is non-domination rather than non-interference. This entails that any instance of interference that does not involve domination is not freedom-lessening. The case for thinking of freedom as non-domination proceeds mostly by way of a handful of highly compelling cases in which it seems intuitive to say of some person that he or she is unfree despite being in fact free from interference. In this essay, I call attention to a kind of case which directs attention to (...) what seems to me to be a highly counterintuitive element of the republican conception of freedom. (shrink)
