God, Politics, Economy by Bulent Diken

Author:Bulent Diken [Diken, Bulent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138014671
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

However, it is not necessarily a third party, a sovereign Leviathan as in Hobbes, who gains by the contract, but potentially everybody, the multitude. So, even though its origin is not reason, its pre-rational character does not stop the city from paving the way for reason; ‘the City’s own nature thus determines it to aim as far as possible for reason’s ideal, to strive to make the sum of its laws conform to reason’ (Deleuze 1992: 266–67). After all, the motivation behind the renunciation of natural rights is the individual’s own interest, safety.

But does this renunciation turn the subjects into slaves? For Spinoza the slave is the person who is driven by his passions without being able to see what is good for him and to act accordingly: ‘he alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason’ (Spinoza 1951a: 206). Certainly, obedience to society takes away one’s freedom in a certain sense, but it does not make one a slave insofar as this obedience is to a democratic society in which the sovereign power is established on the basis of the will of all under the guidance of reason. Whereas the slave obeys a master’s orders and this obedience is only in the master’s interest, the free subject ‘obeys the orders of the sovereign power, given for the common interest, wherein he is included’ (Ibid. 206).

In [democracy] no one transfers his natural right so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain as they were in the state of nature, equals.

(Ibid. 207)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.