Justice et égalité des genres dans la République de Platon (Hervé Goupayou) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0009)
Abstract:
In Platonic thought, justice is synonymous with equality and founded on natural right. In the Republic, more precisely, gender equality, in all levels — political, educational, epistemological, etc. — is based on the distinction between “different natures” and “identical natures”, better on merit according to the natural capacities of individuals. The political equality between women and men, advocated by Plato in Book V of the Republic, is also based on the natural capacities of individuals. The purpose of this article is to show that, in Plato’s Republic, in general, gender equality is not democratic; it is based on distributive justice or geometric equality.
Naissance d'une notion: le coup d'État (Emmanuel Cherrier) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0037)
Abstract:
While the roots of the France-originated notion of coup d’État go back to the Middle Ages, its emergence in the 16th century was linked to that of reason of state. At that time, it designated a major act performed in the general interest by the holder of power, whose legitimacy inscribed the violation of law within a supra-legal legal order specific to the sovereign alone. However, from the end of the 18th century on, the evolution of the theories of reason of state, as well as the indeterminate character of the idea of general interest, opened the field of this concept to non-holders of power (which Brumaire illustrates). This reconfiguration of the definition of the coup d’État made it an act that was always illegal and of uncertain legitimacy (a representation that was entrenched by the December 2nd coup), without however replacing the primary meaning. This polysemy then maintains the confusion around a concept that is used as commonly as it is poorly understood.
William Godwin et l'abolitionnisme pénal (Christophe Béal) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0085)
Abstract:
Among the many critical discourses denouncing the injustices and defects of the English penal system in the 18th century, the work of William Godwin occupies a special place. In a context marked by the dissemination of Beccaria’s ideas and by penal reform projects, the author of the Inquiry Concerning Political Justice considers that a just society cannot content itself with a softening or a humanization of penalties, but must set as its goal the abolition of laws and penal sanctions. Unlike the Enlightenment, he is not satisfied with denouncing the uselessness of cruel punishments but tries to show that the penal system, as such, does not contribute anything to the general utility but on the contrary participates in the maintaining of despotism.
Les “contes de fées” chinois des économistes physiocrates (Edern de Barros) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0103)
Abstract:
In the second half of the 18th century, the Physiocrats drew a parallel between the market society they called for and a fantasized ancient China which they regarded as its historical prefiguration: they traced their “legal despotism” back to the figure of the Chinese Emperor whose sovereignty was meant to be under the supervision of Mandarin jurists. On this model, Quesnay (the “Confucius of Europe”) and his disciples advocated that the King of France be likewise under the constitutional advice of jurist economists for the positive realization of the Tableau économique. But as Mably points out in his Doubts, the Economists’ Chinese “fairy tales” were more about giving their “legal despotism” an empirical appearance so as to better justify an oligarchic project in the service of big landowners.
Les connexions globales de la théorie stadiale de l’histoire. La temporalisation de la différence dans les Lumières françaises et écossaises du milieu du xviiie siècle (Jonathan Martineau) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0135)
Abstract:
This paper examines the emergence of the stadial theory of history in the 1750s in France and Scotland in the light of Johannes Fabian’s concept of “temporalisation of difference”. The paper explores the connections between stadial theory and the broader global context of European colonialism, and argues that the theory rests on an epistemic operation of temporal othering. This constitutes a novelty in contrast to modes of othering based on geographical space prevalent at the time. The paper examines these two modes of othering in texts from the Scottish and French Enlightenment period, notably Montesquieu, Smith, Turgot and Rousseau.
Nos victimes ou l’infinie recherche du juste milieu dans les rapports entre homme et bête (Alexandre Desrameaux) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0169)
Abstract:
At the end of the 19th century, a composite book, Our Victims, illustrated the rising movement in defense of the animal cause in France. It included a collection of points of view from various personalities of the time as well as an essay entitled On compassion towards animals, in which its author, a friend of Michelet, insisted on the utility for man to treat animals well, and on the increase in human dignity which would result from this better treatment. What emerges from this work, imbued with moderation, is the feeling that a new form of commitment of civil society was being born at that time in favor of a new conception of man in his relationship to animality and even to Nature. It seems difficult to have a position other than anthropocentric on this subject, as it does not seem wise to extend the paradigm of subjective rights to animals. Man must above all strive to take the measure of his duties towards them. Properly understood animalism is a humanism.
Léon Duguit ou le comtisme des juristes (Bernard Quiriny) (DOI 10.3917/rfhip1.056.0193)
Abstract:
Léon Duguit dedicated all his work to the protection of individual freedoms against the State. By opting, however, for a solidarist logic rather than the individualist logic familiar to liberal authors, he arrived in spite of himself at conclusions that were systematically hostile to the freedom of the individual: the State for him was not limited but unlimited, the individual was not freed but controlled, private property was not guaranteed but monitored. Rather than guaranteeing freedoms, Duguit’s system seems in fact to aim to ensure the pre-eminence within society of a caste, his own: the jurists, and to be basically in line with an author whom he rarely quotes but is obviously close to: Comte.
La règle verte : redessiner le paysage politique par des bornes écologiques et juridiques (Renaud Braillet) (DOI /0.3917/rfhip1.056.0219)
Abstract:
The objective of the “green law” is to subject States and societies to the strict respect of fundamental ecological limits for the perpetuation of the renewal of terrestrial cycles. This legal instrument, stems from ecological thought, could be the new, unsurpassable framework of the rule of law. However, its establishment and integration into our legal system imply many political and juridical difficulties. Choosing the right ecological boundaries, ensuring the democratic survival of a system in which the sovereignty legislator is once again limited, overcoming traditional environmental normative difficulties, planning, and anticipating judicial interpretation are all theoretical fences that necessarily arise for anyone seriously considering the adoption of the “green law”.
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