1. POLITICAL SOCIETY
INTRODUCTORY POINTS

2. WHICH SPHERE OF SOCIETY?
The public sphere
The sphere of protection and promotion of rights and freedoms
The sphere of public institutions
The sphere of public and civic virtues
The sphere of systems of power exercise:
Most common: democracy
Real risk of forms of despotism and tyranny

3. SPHERE OF POLITICAL JUSTICE
From common good to political common good
The sought end
Political C.G. as political justice
Diversity of political forms
Exercise of power: its purpose
Basis: freedom and responsibility
Moral order required for their exercise

4. The meaning of political power
Acknowledged personal capacity to lead requiring:
To be recognized by those who are led: legitimacy
Legitimate power is exercised with authority.
Knowledge of the common good to be achieved
Ability to mobilize the right means to that end
Ability to devise the right ways to use them

5. The end of legitimate political power
Achievement of the common good
Service to citizens as persons
Natural dignity: basis of rights and freedoms
It is also the fundamental basis of responsibility
Individual and collective responsibility

6. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
POLITICAL SOCIETY
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE

7. Historical Forms of the Political society
Common feature: authority and citizenship
Tribe
Nomadic camps
The Polis in Ancient Greece
The Roman civitas
Medieval Monarchies and Aristocracies
The rising of the Modern State
Its substitution by the Social State
The progressive loss of sovereignty by the State with the rising of global governance

8. The modern state Based upon: Views society: Changes
Reaction to ethically founded political thought
Rejection of intrinsic principles in human nature
Views society:
Not as a natural reality
But as a creation of human will
Changes
The defining factor of politics
From service to the common good to POWER

9. The modern state Main duties : Minimum peace: absence of war
Total submission of citizens
Use of force, hence need of power
Conviction that absolute power can guarantee order and social stability

10. The modern state Features of the Modern State
The long lasting form of a political society
Significantly depending on power
Territory and monopoly of the use of force
Military
Police
Legal framework for society and economy (taxes)
Sense of identity
Flaw that caused the failure of the modern State

11. The social state From servant to master and back
From Justice to Power and Back
Attempt to correct the flaws of an absolute State
Emphasis on guaranteeing freedoms and rights by law
Rule of law binding all including authority holders
Basic ethical postulate: C.G. and citizens’ rights
Expression of the rule of law: Constitution
Functions: rights and the dynamics of political institutions

12. The social state Flaw of the social state: the source of the law
Aristotle’s natural justice and conventional justice
Cicero’s natural law and positive law
Roman thinkers right = Greek’s just: both based upon the value of the human being
Modern thought inspiring modern State and Social State separates both
Asserting the autonomy of positive law and the law of majority

13. The social state Crisis of the Modern State and Social State:
Excessive bureaucracy
Excessive legalization of political relations
Absence of common goals
Poor or inexistence of mechanisms of justice
No shared values about “good life”
Irresponsible State and Citizens’ anomie

14. SOME THEORIES OF POLITICAL JUSTICE
POLITICAL SOCIETY
SOME THEORIES OF POLITICAL JUSTICE

15. UTILITARIANISM Jeremy Bentham and J. Stuart-Mill
Man’s good is equated to pleasure
Pleasure as satisfaction derived from material consumption
Calculated in terms of utility
Political justice = achievement of the greatest good for the greatest number
Problem: P.J. reduced to utility, who is the greatest number? Quantitative maximization of good excludes moral good; confusion between public good and common good

16. CONTRACTUALISM J. Jacques Rousseau Theory of the Social Contract
The law as general will of the people
Man’s good as what the law says
Individual autonomy and tolerance
Political Justice determined through dialogue
Procedure for Dialogue: neutrality

17. COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM
Marx and Engels
Reaction against the liberal individualism
Theory: historical materialism
Collective ownership of property
Means: proletariat violent revolution
State ownership and uniformisation of man
Equality = material equality, an impossibility

18. MECHANISMS OF POLITICAL GOVERNANCE
POLITICAL SOCIETY
MECHANISMS OF POLITICAL GOVERNANCE

19. IS POLITICAL JUSTICE POSSIBLE?
Common point in all described theories: an attempt to achieve the common good of freedom
Human freedom only within an order of freedoms (of others)
Hierarchy of freedoms and common good
Concept of just law
Unjust laws
Rights and duties deriving from the common good of freedom

20. THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY
Definition
Possibility: Greece and Switzerland
Characteristics of modern democracy:
Sovereignty of the people through a rule of law
Large populations with diversity of representation
Mechanisms of representation by the people
Control of government by the balance of 3 powers
Openness to multiparty system
Risks: inability to correct defects of liberalism, gvt of parties rather than people, short term plans and relativism

21. LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Based upon individualistic tradition
Political reality is an instrument for individual interests
Law is meant to be an arbiter of freedoms
Political justice is a result of an artificial agreement
The Social Contract doesn’t really bind anyone: the lack of accountability
Political participation determined by individual interests

22. REPUBLICANISM Based upon the constitutive nature of political reality
Citizenship is an ethical dimension
Patriotism puts common interests before individual interests
Respect of the law and austerity are an obligation for all
Being free implies also promoting other people’s freedom
Political participation determined necessary responsibility