The Political Philosophy of Freedom in the Christian Axiology of Republicanism

G.T. Sardaryan

doi:10.17976/jpps/2021.04.10

The Political Philosophy of Freedom in the Christian Axiology of Republicanism

Sardaryan G.T.,

MGIMO University. Moscow, Russia, sardaryan.mgimo@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 755856 | ORCID: 0000-0001-8515-4321 | RESEARCHER_ID: P-9791-2017

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2021.04.10

Rubric: Problems and Judgments: Religion, Politics and Ontology of the Social Being

For citation:

Sardaryan G.T. The Political Philosophy of Freedom in the Christian Axiology of Republicanism. – Polis. Political Studies. 2021. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.04.10

Abstract

The article examines, through an analysis of classical and modern political philosophy, the cultural and religious basis of the ideas underlying republicanism. The central question here is whether a republic could be considered a universal model of government, requiring only a well-structured constitutional law which regulates political process in a proper way, or it has a greater dependency on cultural background and values generated by religious heritage. The paper analyzes the essential content of the ideological and theoretical foundations of the republic, comparing them with the Christian religious and cultural tradition. At the same time, various approaches to understanding both the goal-setting of the republic as a whole and its constituent institutions are considered. The main task, in this regard, is to study the place and role of ideas and values in the formation of state institutions, tracing the influence of religious and cultural factors on the formation of public consensus on the configuration of the structure of state power; in the end, the task is to consider what the role of Christianity is in the formation of the modern ideological and theoretical foundations of republicanism, particularly in its key ideologeme of freedom. The author concludes that such a republic will be impossible without society being aware of its subjectivity, with the existence of common interests that may prevail over private ones and the need for individuals to sacrifice their own goods in the name of a common cause that is determined by society’s holistic values. All of these ideas comprise themes of Christianity, possibly making it the true source of the modern republican model. A striking example of this is the central theme of republicanism: freedom, which is traditionally equal in classical works with “non-slavery”. However, the negative concept (that is, the perception of freedom as “non-slavery”) is too vague and does not give any understanding of the essence of what freedom is as an independent category. Without purpose, meaning, and ideological essence, freedom as “non-slavery” is slave ownership. To overcome this contradiction, it is necessary to go beyond the negative concept of freedom and the slave/owner dichotomy. Without Christianity, the western form of the republican idea of human rights lacks the philosophical basis for the axiology of freedom. The systematic destruction of Christian religious cultural heritage can lead to the deprivation of the idea-theoretical basis of republic, which than can cause dysfunctionality of its key institutions.

Keywords

republicanism, Christianity, freedom, axiology, institutions.

Full Text

References

Arendt H. 1969. On Violence. New York.

Becker H. 2007. Telling About Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press

Brooke C. 2009. “In Roman costume and with Roman phrases”: Skinner, Pettit and Hobbes on Republican Liberty (Review). – Hobbes Studies. Vol. 22. No. 2. P. 178-184. https://doi.org/10.1163/092158909X12452520755559

Crabtree C., Kern H.L., Siegel D.A. 2020. Cults of Personality, Preference Falsification, and the Dictator’s Dilemma. – Journal of Theoretical Politics. Vol. 32. No. 3. P. 409-434. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629820927790

DeHart P.R. 2012. Covenantal Realism: The Self-Referential Incoherency of Conventional Social Contract Theory and the Necessity of Consent. – Perspectives on Political Science. Vol. 41. No. 3. P. 165-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2012.692643

Flamigni C. 2015. About Informed Social Consent and About Duty of Evolution of the Norms. – Notizie di Politeia. Vol. 31. No. 119. P. 3-9.

Foret F., Riva V. 2010. Religion Between Nation and Europe: The French and Belgian ‘No’ to the Christian Heritage of Europe. – West European Politics. Vol. 33. No. 4. P. 791-809. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402381003794621

Foucault M. 1983. The Subject and Power. – Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Ed. by H. Dreyfus, P. Rabinow. P. 208-226. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goffman E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.

Gray P.W. 2014. Vanguards, Sacralisation of Politics, and Totalitarianism: Category-Based Epistemology and Political Religion. – Politics, Religion and Ideology. Vol. 15. No. 4. P. 521-540. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2014.957686

Gruhn I.V. 2015. Theory of State Formation. – International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Ed. by J.D. Wright. Elsevier. P. 353-355.

Gu X. 2021. Sacrifice and Indebtedness: The Intergenerational Contract in Chinese Rural Migrant Families. – Journal of Family Issues. P. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X21993890

Hayek F.A.V. 1965. Kinds of Rationalism. – The Economic Studies Quarterly. Vol. 15. No. 2.

Hegel G.W.F. 2015. The Philosophy of Right. Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated.

Ihering R. von, Lalor J.J. 2013. The Struggle for Law. Gale, Making of Modern Law.

Jed W.A. 2012. Cicero on Politics and the Limits of Reason. – Cicero on Politics and the Limits of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jurdjevic M. 2008. Guardians of Republicanism: The Valori Family in the Florentine Renaissance. Oxford University Press.

Keeler J.T.S. 1993. Executive Power and Policy-Making Patterns in France: Gauging the Impact of Fifth Republic Institutions. – West European Politics. Vol. 16. No. 4. P. 518-544. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402389308424989

Korvela P.-E. 2005. Machiavelli’s Critique of Christianity. Redescriptions. – Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History. Vol. 9. No. 1. P. 183-213. https://doi.org/10.7227/R.9.1.10

Lukes S. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan Press.

Mandevile B. 1714. The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits. London: Printed for J. Roberts.

McGraw K.M., Dolan T.M. 2007. Personifying the State: Consequences for Attitude Formation. – Political Psychology. Vol. 28. No. 3. P. 299-327. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00570.x

Messina J.P., Wiens D. 2020. Morals from Rationality Alone? Some Doubts. – Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Vol. 19. No. 3. P. 248-273. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X20906616

Morgan J. 2019. The State, Law, Religion, and Justice in Cicero’s the Republic and the Laws: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Interpretation. – Studia Gilsoniana. Vol. 8. No. 3. P. 645-680.

Paulson L. 2014. A Painted Republic: The Constitutional Innovations of Cicero’s De legibus. – Etica e Politica. Vol. 16. No. 2. P. 307-340.

Petersen M.B., Skaaning S.-E. 2010. Ultimate Causes of State Formation: The Significance of Biogeography, Diffusion, and Neolithic Revolutions. – Historical Social Research. Vol. 35. No. 3. P. 200-226.

Rousseau J.-J. 1997. Geneva Manuscript. – The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Skinner Q. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. Vol. 2. The Age of Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stonawski M., Potančokova M., Skirbekk V. 2016. Fertility Patterns of Native and Migrant Muslims in Europe. – Population, Space and Place. Vol. 22. No. 6. P. 552-567. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1941

Tama J. 2020. Forcing the President’s Hand: How the US Congress Shapes Foreign Policy through Sanctions Legislation. – Foreign Policy Analysis. Vol. 16. No. 3. P. 397-416. https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orz018

Taylor Ch. 1985. What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty. – Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 211-229.

Taylor Ch. 1992. The Politics of Recognition. – Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Ed. by A. Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press. P. 25-73.

Weiss G. 2020. Searching for Europe: The Problem of Legitimisation and Representation in Recent Political Speeches on Europe. – Journal of Language and Politics. Vol. 1. No. 1. P. 59-83. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.1.1.06wei

Content No. 4, 2021