This paper comments on some passages of the book by Damiano Canale with particular reference to its first theoretical part, pointing out the difficulty in connecting the theoretical dimension of law with the practice. In what follows my main concern is to show how the book, notwithstanding its brilliance and clarity, seems not to pay the adequate attention to the socio-political importance of practical cases and the conflicts it engenders.
This article discusses the opposition of neurosciences of moral judgement to moral philosophy, shedding light on the political meaning of the thesis according to which a science of morality is possible, or already real, and would demonstrate that rights' recognition equates to a cognitive error. It furthermore presents some theoretical contributions offered by Kant's moral doctrine – on condition that one avoids providing an unfounded and caricatural account in order to make it the paradigm of armchair philosophy – about the role of intuition and reasoning in formulating moral judgements and of mental experiments on moral dilemmas. ; L'articolo discute la contrapposizione delle neuroscienze del giudizio morale alla filosofia morale, mettendo in luce il significato politico della tesi che sia possibile, o già reale, una scienza della moralità, e che questa dimostri che il riconoscimento dei diritti equivale a un errore cognitivo. L'articolo presenta inoltre alcuni dei contributi teorici che la dottrina morale di Kant può fornire – purché si eviti di fornirne un resoconto infondato e caricaturale, per farne il paradigma della filosofia dalla poltrona – quanto al ruolo dell'intuizione e del ragionamento nella formulazione dei giudizi morali e quanto alla funzione da attribuire agli esperimenti mentali relativi ai dilemmi morali.
Civil religion: uses and misuses of a concept. The analysis of the concept of "civil religion" shows an ambiguity caused by the mix between religion and morality, and religion and politics. The idea behind is the sacralization of politics in order to assure its autonomy from historic religions. Civil religion supporters individuate in this cultural position two positive results: the opening of politics to transcendence and the ethical legitimation of communitarian linkages. The article examines these two aspects, in the light of constitutionalism, human rights and current pluralism. The conclusion is that the concept must be considered misleading.
This paper deals with the major concepts of Scanlon's moral contractualism. It is possible to describe moral contractualism as the ability to identify priorities and moral reasons in deliberative action, that no one could reasonably reject. These capabilities require us to take into account the interests of others in our moral judgments. The result is that Scanlon overthrow the philosophy of Hobbes: morality is not originated from politics; on the contrary, politics is a function of morality. His answer to the dilemma of Prichard is particularly persuasive, though the proof of the falsity of the skeptical position can only be dialectic and persuasive is its intellectualistic position on relations between reasons and desires, too.
The starting point is the conviction that publicity is central to Kantian political thought as part of the wider relationship between politics and morality. In this sense the book aims to outline subjective and objective limits of the public control of power, which must be structurally guaranteed from a juridical point of view and that citizens/subjects have to put into practice. But from a Kantian point of view publicity is also linked to education and to the public use of reason, that individuals must have the courage to realize. The individual dimension and the collective/institutional one are tightly linked to answer the question: according to Kant, is it possible an education to publicity?
The Author treats the argument of the quality of public ethics starting from norms that regulate it in various Sicilian Constitutions of the 19th century until Constitutional Chart of the Italian Republic.Therefore, he shows how the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, modeled according to the example of political institutions of Great Britain, and that of 1848 both have already had a great interest towards the profile of morality exercised in the political life and how both have prescribed the parliamentary decadence of Deputies who made themselves guilty of having corrupted the electorate in order to be elected or became authors of criminal offences. The question of the quality of public ethics appears, for the Author, even today of a relevant actuality not only in order to restrain the corruption that devastates the politics, transforming it in bad politics, but also to give force to a successful recruitment of political élites. Therefore, in this work he treats the topic of the regeneration of political life aiming to connect the exigency of reform of the access to political roles with a not less necessary ethical vigilance expressed by the suffrage of electoral body. Following the line of Max Weber's thought, the Author concludes that the quality of politics has no need of demagogues, political hacks or political dilettantes, but of austere men of politics, dedicated to good purposes of general interest, and which should act according to the ethics of responsibility.
The article analyses the writings published by Pietro Verri on the issues of the Caffè, one of the most important periodicals of the Italian Enlightenment, founded in a cultural climate marked by optimism towards enlightened absolutism. The work is a contribution to the lively and open debate on the aesthetic and literary thought of Pietro Verri. In the first place, the work follows Verri's reflections on the problem of the Italian language. Secondly, the work explores Pietro's aesthetic-literary thought, with particular attention to the writings on theatre and comedy. Verri reflects organically on these problems and develops an analysis of the passions of the human being. The author explains the function perform by the sentiment in the psychological and physiological processes that constitute the consciousness. Finally, the article analyses the repercussions of this aesthetic-psychological thought in the dimension of morality and politics. The analysis of these literary and aesthetic writings can enrich the historiographical picture of Pietro Verri. Despite the aristocratic conception of culture and politics, the author elaborates the cultural presuppositions of an intersubjective conception, which prefigures the political contract between free and equal individuals. Pietro's reflections refer therefore to a set of unresolved issues, around which moderates and democrats will conflict in the years of the Revolution.
The present analysis focuses on the modern methodology of translating several philosophical treatises by a famous Italian thinker of the 20th century, Benedetto Croce, into Polish. The author of the article presented the self-translation of selected extracts of the well-known essay Perché non possiamo non dirci «cristiani» released in 1942. The philosopher affirms in this text that Christianity was the biggest revolution of the soul in the human history and that is why we cannot reject its impact on the individuals, on the politics and on the morality. The poetic and cultural allusions and the archaism of the language made the essay an interesting example of a philosophical work which at the same time can preserve its universalism and become a reflection of the linguistic and cultural transformations of the 20th century.
The convergences of Giacomo Leopardi, Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff in reading the Iliad are impressive. This holds not only as regards the meaning and value of the poem but also concerning the almost equal interpretation of fundamental passages and the use of expressions that sometimes coincide literally. These convergences open up to a both original and originary ethical dimension, a dimension that allows us to think about ourselves in a condition of radical equality. We are thus dealing with an ethics that precedes morality, law, politics and cultures, an ethics originating from the recognition of the condition of dependence: yesterday from the fatum, today from our biological constitution and the complex of social relations. Such an ethics reaches its goal in the compassion as well as in the awareness that the liberation process must take on this ethical perspective. Keywords: Homer, Ethics, Cosmos, Fatum, Violence
The overview hereafter presented offers the development of the scholastic interpretations of the passage from Book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics where the Greek philosopher sets an "imperfect identity" between prudentia and politics. From this study two interesting conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, a linear development can not be easily traced: the medieval authors have given different interpretations of the Aristotelian passage, thus trying to solve the problematic relationship between the individual's moral life and his political one. The two possible solutions are equally represented: both the conception which favours the existence of one single virtue responsible for both ambits, and the one which instead holds that the differences between private morality and politics are so relevant that different virtues for each of these ambits are necessary. This first result clearly demonstrates the lack of a communis opinio. There is an evident tension between the two poles variously interpreted by the different authors, anyway in opposition to the thesis of the divisibility of prudentia in species. Thus the second conclusion: the authors taken into consideration do not seem eager to renounce to the idea of the unity of practical reason, and have rather searched with great force for other ways of conceiving this unity. In order to gain a complete image of the problem a wider research would be needed, thus connecting the a. m. reflections to some considerations on the nature of prudentia as a virtue, and on the existing relations between bonum commune and individual good. A general result is however achieved: the medieval thinkers would not even take into consideration an individual prudentia disconnected from politics, nor a political prudentia disconnected from moral life.
Il racconto tucidideo sul dramma di Platea, oltre ad essere di eccezionale intensità, è anche e soprattutto una riflessione sottile sui confini incerti e precari tra politica e morale, e sull'ambiguità e i rischi delle parole e del discorso pubblico: fuori dal logos, fuori dalla parola, che è sempre parola pubblica, non c'è politica, e dove non c'è politica ogni confine si dissolve e tutto diviene possibile. In questo terreno, su cui lo storico ateniese ci riporta continuamente, le sanzioni religiose e i procedimenti giudiziari invocati di volta in volta dai diversi protagonisti della narrazione sono di fatto sottoposti ad una riflessione corrosiva che ne smaschera la natura dissimulatrice. ; The Thucydidean story on the dramatic siege of Plataea is a subtle reflection on both the precarious and uncertain boundaries between politics and morality, and the risks and the ambiguity of public discourse. Outside of the logos, which is always public speech, there is no policy: all boundaries dissolve and everything becomes possible. In this frame, the religious sanctions and the legal proceedings are in fact subjected to a corrosive reflection.
This article provides an overview of censorship and book bans in Austria between 1751 and 1848. It is based on the catalogues and lists of banned manuscripts and books and the available censorship regulations and censors' protocols; moreover, the most important persons involved in censorship such as Gerard van Swieten, Count Sedlnitzky, and Metternich are introduced, and their impact on the book trade is shown. From an instrument encouraging Enlightenment and defending morality during the reign of Maria Teresa and Joseph II, censorship became a major factor of political repression after the French Revolution. The focus moved from the protection of Catholicism against Protestant "heresy" and superstition to the defense of monarchy against liberalism and nationalism. The aim of enlightening the citizens and promoting their happiness pursued during the second half of the eighteenth century was replaced by the will to maintain the "peace" of the state and suppress any ideas that confounded its interests. ; Razprava preučuje cenzuro in prepovedi knjig v Avstriji med letoma 1751 in 1848. Temelji na katalogih in seznamih prepovedanih rokopisov in knjig ter razpoložljivih predpisih o cenzuri in cenzorskih protokolih; poleg tega so predstavljene najpomembnejše osebe, vpletene v cenzuro, kot so Gerard van Swieten, grof Sedlnitzky in Metternich, in prikazan njihov vpliv na knjižni trg. Od instrumenta, ki je spodbujal razsvetljenske ideje in branil moralo, kar je bilo značilno za vladavino Marije Terezije in Jožefa II., je cenzura po francoski revoluciji postala glavni dejavnik politične represije. Težišče se je premaknilo z zaščite katolištva pred protestantsko herezijo« in vraževerjem k obrambi monarhije pred liberalizmom in nacionalizmom. Cilj razsvetljenja državljanov in spodbujanje njihove sreče, ki ga je zasledovala cenzura v drugi polovici 18. stoletja, sta nadomestila volja po ohranjanju »miru« države in za-tiranje vseh idej, ki so bile v navzkrižju z njenimi interesi.
This contribution is a continuation of the survey previously carried out, and also published in «EuroStudium», relating to the contents and promoters of the «Revue philosophique et religieuse», a significant magazine inspired by Saint-Simonism published in the second half of the 1850s., before incurring Napoleonic censorship. To this end, this research has been dedicated to the editorial initiatives subsequent to the aforementioned revue, focusing in particular on the primary role exercised once again by the philosopher, jurist and industrial executive Charles Lemonier, the promoter of associationism for the United States of Europe initiated with the famous Congress of Peace and Freedom, held in Geneva in 1967 and lasted well beyond. Specifically, the contribution focuses on the very relevant presentation made by Lemonnier to the edition of Saint-Simon's Selected Works, printed in Brussels in '59, as well as on what he provided in the volume Ébauche d'un Glossaire du Langage Philosophique, published in 1863 by Léon Brothier, his colleague and companion of Saint-Simonism. The ambitious goal of these publications was to affirm in the culture and politics of the century the "Association" inherited from Saint-Simon and reworked as a "dogma" based on the laws of the entire universal order, or as a "religion" of human progress set on the triadic gravitation between science, morality and industry. Such a religion would have been such as to unite the different components of Saint-Simonism and to face communist-inspired internationalism, in the perspective of a substantial European unity based on the new innovative principles, replacing all ancient beliefs. The research also highlights the connection between cultural initiatives of this importance (very close to the Masonic world) and significant industrial environments heavily engaged in technological and production innovation, as well as in the opening of trade frontiers worldwide. A context in which Lemonnier and Brothier himself, both professionally employed by the ...
Sorto alla fine degli anni ottanta del Novecento, il teatro di narrazione ha raggiunto un notevole successo di pubblico a partire dagli anni Novanta. I suoi legami con il giornalismo d'inchiesta hanno condotto questo genere teatrale verso la narrazione di alcuni tra gli eventi pi controversi della storia dell'Italia repubblicana; eventi non ancora risolti sul piano processuale o al centro di una memoria storica fortemente divisa. Marco Baliani, Marco Paolini e Ascanio Celestini sono i tre autori che abbiamo scelto per affrontare un'analisi delle loro narrazioni in merito, rispettivamente, all'omicidio di Aldo Moro, alla strage di Ustica e all'eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine. Oggetto della ricerca l'analisi dell'utilizzo delle fonti da dichiarate o comunque utilizzate dai narratori per la costruzione delle loro performances la loro selezione, la loro interpretazione e la loro disposizione nel testo e la messa in evidenza del problema della verità e del suo rapporto con il verosimile nelle narrazioni teatrali di eventi storici. Particolare attenzione viene inoltre posta al grande dibattito internazionale tra storia e fiction, alle strategie di coinvolgimento dell'opinione pubblica su temi morali e politici nonché all'analisi dei fattori economici e delle committenze che sono alla base di tali narrazioni. ; In the eighties of the twentieth century a particular theatrical form appeared in Italy, which is known today as teatro di narrazione (storytelling theater). The storytelling theater has among its best actors and writers those involved in telling contemporary history in order to revive the memory of past events. Marco Baliani, Marco Paolini and Ascanio Celestini are among the actors who now better represent this artistic movement. The purpose of this thesis is to show how their performances are created and spread and to analyze the relationship between historical sources and drama texts of three events in the history of Italy: Mr Aldo Moro's murder, the slaughter of the Fosse Ardeatine and the massacre of Ustica. Particular attention is devoted to the international debate between history and fiction, to the analysis of the relationship between narrators and the public opinion, between morality and politics, and to the study of patronage and economic factors of these performances.
