Authority and the Metaphysics of Political Communities
Authority and the Metaphysics of Political Communities

Author: Gabriele De Anna

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-03-11

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1000060578

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This book explores the metaphysics of political communities. It discusses how and why a plurality of individuals becomes a political unity, what principles or forces keep that unity together, and what threats that unity can be faced with. In Part I, the author justifies the need for the notion of substance in metaphysics in general and in the metaphysics of politics in particular. He spells out a moderately realist theory of substances and of their principles of unity, which supports substantial gradualism. Part II concerns action theory and the nature of practical reason. The author claims that the acknowledgement of reasons by agents is constitutive of action and that normativity depends on the role of the good in the formation of reasons. Finally, in Part III the author addresses the notion of political community. He claims that the principle of unity of a political community is its authority to give members of the community moral reasons for action. This suggests a middle way between liberal individualism and organicism, and the author demonstrates the significance of this view by discussing current political issues such as the role of religion in the public sphere and the political significance of cultural identity. Authority and the Metaphysics of Political Communities will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in social metaphysics, political philosophy, philosophy of action, and philosophy of the social sciences.

Authority
Authority

Author: Fabian Wendt

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-08-08

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1509517014

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From citizens paying taxes to employees following their bosses' orders and kids obeying their parents, we take it for granted that a whole range of authorities have the power to impose duties on others. However, although authority is often accepted in practice, it looks philosophically problematic if we conceive persons as free and equals. In this short and accessible book, Fabian Wendt examines the basis of authority, discussing five prominent theories that try to explain how claims to authority can be vindicated. Focusing in particular on the issue of how states can rightfully claim authority, he rigorously analyses the theories’ arguments and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. He also debates anarchism as an alternative that should be taken seriously if no theory ultimately succeeds in explaining state authority. This clear and engaging book will be essential reading for anyone grappling with the most fundamental questions of authority and obligation in political theory and political philosophy.

Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction
Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Author: David Miller

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-06-26

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0191577863

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This book introduces readers to the concepts of political philosophy. It starts by explaining why the subject is important and how it tackles basic ethical questions such as 'how should we live together in society?' It looks at political authority, the reasons why we need politics at all, the limitations of politics, and whether there are areas of life that shouldn't be governed by politics. It explores the connections between political authority and justice, a constant theme in political philosophy, and the ways in which social justice can be used to regulate rather than destroy a market economy. David Miller discusses why nations are the natural units of government and whether the rise of multiculturalism and transnational co-operation will change this: will we ever see the formation of a world government? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Political Identity and the Metaphysics of Polities
Political Identity and the Metaphysics of Polities

Author: Gabriele De Anna

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-05

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1000878805

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The chapters in this volume clarify the notion of political identity by focusing on the metaphysics of polities. By analysing the notion of political identity, they provide the conceptual resources for a deeper understanding of the theoretical and practical debates on populism, the crisis of sovereignty, the feasibility of a world government, and ethical, religious, and cultural pluralism. What is a political community? Any answer to this question lies at the intersection between three fields: metaphysics, philosophy of action, and political philosophy. The question concerns how and why a plurality of individuals becomes a political unity, what principles or forces keep that unity together, and what threats that unity can encounter. In this volume, the contributors investigate how different metanormative views affect the possible answers to this metaphysical question. They explore the role that the individual identities of agents play in grounding common practices that underpin political life. They investigate the individual identities of agents as the result of the interplay between natural and cultural factors. Finally, they observe the ways in which a political community, as a collection of individuals who hang together in an attempt to reach common purposes, demonstrate a certain metaphysical solidity. Political Identity and the Metaphysics of Polities will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in metaphysics, political philosophy, political theory, and philosophy of action.

Authority and Democracy
Authority and Democracy

Author: Christopher McMahon

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1400887461

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Should the democratic exercise of authority that we take for granted in the realm of government be extended to the managerial sphere? Exploring this question, Christopher McMahon develops a theory of government and management as two components of an integrated system of social authority that is essentially political in nature. He then considers where in this structure democratic decision making is appropriate. McMahon examines the main varieties of authority: the authority of experts, authority grounded in a promise to obey, and authority justified as facilitating mutually beneficial cooperation. He also discusses the phenomenon of managerial authority, the authority that guides nongovernmental organization, and argues that managerial authority is best regarded not as the authority of a principal over an agent, but rather as authority that facilitates mutually beneficial cooperation among employees with different moral aims. Viewed in this way, there is a presumption that managerial authority should be democratically exercised by employees. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Is Political Authority an Illusion?
Is Political Authority an Illusion?

Author: Michael Huemer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1000456404

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What gives some people the right to issue commands to everyone else and force everyone else to obey them? And why should people obey the commands of those with political power? These two key questions are the heart of the issue of political authority, and, in this volume, two philosophers debate the answers. Michael Huemer argues that political authority is an illusion and that no one is entitled to rule over anyone. He discusses and rebuts the major theories supporting political authority’s rightfulness: implicit social contract theory, hypothetical contract theories, democratic theories of authority, and utilitarian theories. Daniel Layman argues that democratic governments have authority because they are needed to protect our rights and because they are accountable to the people. Each author writes two replies directly addressing the arguments and ideas of the other. Key Features Covers a key foundational problem of political philosophy: the authority of government. Debate format ensures a full hearing of both sides. A Glossary includes key concepts in political philosophy related to the issue of authority. Annotated Further Reading sections point students to additional resources. Clear, concrete examples and arguments help students clearly see both sides of the argument. A Foreword by Matt Zwolinski describes a broader context for political authority and then traces the key points and turns in the authors’ debate.

The Problem of Political Authority
The Problem of Political Authority

Author: Michael Huemer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-29

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1137281669

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The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

Becoming Political
Becoming Political

Author: Christopher Skeaff

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-06-25

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 022655550X

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In this pathbreaking work, Christopher Skeaff argues that a profoundly democratic conception of judgment is at the heart of Spinoza’s thought. Bridging Continental and Anglo-American scholarship, critical theory, and Spinoza studies, Becoming Political offers a historically sensitive, meticulous, and creative interpretation of Spinoza’s texts that reveals judgment as the communal element by which people generate power to resist domination and reconfigure the terms of their political association. If, for Spinoza, judging is the activity which makes a people powerful, it is because it enables them to contest the project of ruling and demonstrate the political possibility of being equally free to articulate the terms of their association. This proposition differs from a predominant contemporary line of argument that treats the people’s judgment as a vehicle of sovereignty—a means of defining and refining the common will. By recuperating in Spinoza’s thought a “vital republicanism,” Skeaff illuminates a line of political thinking that decouples democracy from the majoritarian aspiration to rule and aligns it instead with the project of becoming free and equal judges of common affairs. As such, this decoupling raises questions that ordinarily go unasked: what calls for political judgment, and who is to judge? In Spinoza’s vital republicanism, the political potential of life and law finds an affirmative relationship that signals the way toward a new constitutionalism and jurisprudence of the common.

The Problem of Political Authority
The Problem of Political Authority

Author: Michael Huemer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-29

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13: 1137281669

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The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics
Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics

Author: Susan James

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-01-26

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0191629200

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Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise is simultaneously a work of philosophy and a piece of practical politics. It defends religious pluralism, a republican form of political organisation, and the freedom to philosophise, with a determination that is extremely rare in seventeenth-century thought. But it is also a fierce and polemical intervention in a series of Dutch disputes over issues about which Spinoza and his opponents cared very deeply. Susan James makes the arguments of the Treatise accessible, and their motivations plain, by setting them in their historical and philosophical context. She identifies the interlocking theological, hermeneutic, historical, philosophical, and political positions to which Spinoza was responding, shows who he aimed to discredit, and reveals what he intended to achieve. The immediate goal of the Treatise is, she establishes, a local one. Spinoza is trying to persuade his fellow citizens that it is vital to uphold and foster conditions in which they can cultivate their capacity to live rationally, free from the political manifestations and corrosive psychological effects of superstitious fear. At the same time, however, his radical argument is designed for a broader audience. Appealing to the universal philosophical principles that he develops in greater detail in his Ethics, and drawing on the resources of imagination to make them forceful and compelling, Spinoza speaks to the inhabitants of all societies, including our own. Only in certain political circumstances is it possible to philosophise, and learn to live wisely and well.