Rafał Wonicki

The role of intellectuals in polis. Reflections on Xenophon’s Hiéron: It is well known, although the 20th century has showed it probably in the most visible way, that intellectuals would often like to make a moral influence on politicians and politics. Their eternal dream of enlightened government turns them to the delusion of their own agency in influencing politicians. Following such an illusion as Mark Lilla shows leads them in many cases to support a tyrannical regime. The problem of intellectual engagement and interaction with the authorities is not of course new. We could also observe and analyze it just going back to the Greek roots. In the article I would like to outline the relationship between Xenophon’s life and his reflections as a philosopher on power that he included in Hieron. I also refer these considerations to the present day in reference to Leo Strauss’ interpretation of Xenophon’s ideas about tyranny. Such comparison could be still today instructive for us how problematic is the role of those who, communing with the ideas of beauty, good and justice, want to transfer them to the sphere of the political community. It is this junction of ethics and politics that I would like to address in my considerations, trying to compare Plato with Xenophon and indicate several possible interpretations of the philosopher’s relationship to politics and power.

The main aim of the article is to show that axiological and anthropological dimensions of human rights in the globalized world do not fit together. Such tension – between universally understood human rights and territorially perceived citizens’ rights – is unavoidable. By making the term “human” strictly biological people are being perceived not as members of a particular community but as members of the species. In the political paradigm these collectivities are distinguished by political rules, in the biological paradigm they are perceived as natural. In this situation, from political perspective the life of the others (non-citizens) in effect ceases to be treated as a human life or as a life associated with any ethical requirements, because the normative dimension that metaphysics, religion or politics give to the notion of being human has been excluded. Hence, human rights cannot be enforced with the same effectiveness as the laws enforced in the area of state jurisdiction. They constitute an ethical norm by which the international community judges a given procedure, rather than an enforceable legal norm. In order to justify my reasoning, I will refer to the two philosophically important categories - space and border – that play an important role in understanding the processes of globalization that affect the legitimation and enforcement of human rights.

Based on Kant’s political thought, this article deals with the relationship between a ruler’s power and freedom, law and morality. The assumed external freedom is to be guaranteed to individuals by a valid political authority (sovereign); however, the authorities do not have to obey the law, which means that the freedom of citizens is threatened. Thus, a tension appears between the freedom of the individual and obedience to an unjust law. From an authority’s perspective, peace is more important than moral development, and from a moral perspective, the rule of law is less important than ethical perfection. This leads to the question of whether revolutionary changes to the system can be justified on the basis of Kant’s assumptions, as some liberal interpretations of Kant’s thought propose. In this article, I argue that although the revolutionary moment is possible within Kant’s political philosophy, it is in a different place than most liberal authors point out and has no link to the common understanding of revolution.

This article compares two philosophical traditions and their attitudes to war and violence within the context of international relations. The first refers to Hobbes’ political realism, the second to the Grotian idea of international community. Each of these traditions understands the role of violence and war at an international level differently. From the perspective of political realism, violence is part of anarchistic relations between states and a means for achieving their goals. From the perspective of international community, violence is a factor that needs to be minimized via the mechanisms of peaceful international cooperation between states. Based on the analysis of these two approaches, it is claimed that the Hobbesian perspective can be partly included in the perspective of the English School, which is based on the Grotian tradition.

The main purpose of this article is to compare the liberal and republican understanding of the role of political culture. The reconstruction of the liberal and republican elements of the political sphere demonstrates how these theories present the role of citizenship, government and democracy, thus revealing differences in the concepts of political culture. Firstly, the liberal concept of political culture is described as a practice that allows citizens to fulfil their individual interests. Liberal political culture helps to integrate people in the institutional framework, thus enabling them to realize their individual preferences without the state’s pressure to choose one particular model of a good life. Secondly, the republican model of political culture is analysed. It stresses citizens’ engagement in the public sphere and the role of positive freedom, based on an active search for common good and the cultivation of common practices supporting the state’s paternalistic techniques of integration. This type of culture allows citizens to achieve common moral development. In conclusion, it is argued that in the age of galloping globalization, these two normative models do not fit perfectly well into the Western social and political landscape because today we live in communities which embrace both the liberal and republican elements of political culture. Thus, it is demonstrated that there is some space for compromise between these two approaches, i.e. liberal republican culture.

The author dwells on the concept of hospitality which has been replaced in our era by that of tolerance. The author introduces us to contemporary attitudes to the latter and points to its problematic nature, the counterpoint to which is the former. A description of changes in the understanding of hospitality is provided, ranging from antiquity, via the Englightenment, to modern times, with references to Kant and Derrida. Besides this, he compares the differences and similarities between the concepts of tolerance and hospitality, suggesting that it is the latter which is useful when describing a globalised and cosmopolitical world, as well as positing that the concept of hospitality can be translated into the practices of human life.

The author posits a query regarding the nature of European citizenship as expressed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. What does the European citizenship consist of? In what manner does the European Union guarantee its citizens compliance with the rights inscribed in the Charter? The main objective, as seen by constitutionalists, political scientists and philosophers is to build a coherent set of rules, acceptable by all the states, which constitutes European citizenship, as well as the criteria for access to holding it, thereby simultaneously determining the status of particular groups of inhabitants of the European Union’s territory. The model underlying the provisions in respect of citizenship is aimed at a compromise, preserving the ideal of state sovereignty, and at avoiding the building of citizenship based on kinship, common territory, language or the sharing of a given ethnos. The objective of European citizenship is to create a supra-national awareness.

The theory of a deliberative, democratic state posited by Jurgen Habermas fills the gaps in the concepts of democracy proper to liberalism and republicanism. Habermas’ theory intermediates between the liberal and the republican models, avoiding the one-sidedness to which they tend. A deliberative state ruled by law is based on a discursive forming of the will, the essence of which is communicative rationality, setting out the framework of a democratic procedure legitimising the rightfully made law and a law-abiding state. Communicative rationality guarantees that all the important interests will be accounted for. In this model, the public space, in turn, is perceived and understood as a possibility whereby all the stakeholders are able to create procedures. In his theory of liberalism, Habermas refers to a higher level of intersubjectivity where the communication processes occurs, which leads on the one hand to the institutionalising of deliberations, in the form of political bodies, and on the another hand, to the establishing of an informal network of linkages in the public sphere. Contrary to the liberal and republican model, the deliberative model of a democratic, law-governed state is focussed on the discursive legitimisation of the law, while politics here is understood as a public activity being played out in the interpersonal sphere. In such politics, the attention is displaced from the fi nal act of voting to the process of agreeing the rules and arriving at an agreement.

The aim of the article is to examine the role that memory and oblivion, forgiveness and unforgiveness play in Hannah Arendt’s thought in relation to acts of violence in the political sphere. Political communities do not always decide to remember the crimes they have committed or the wrongs they have suffered, but neither can they always forget their mutual harms, even when there is already peace between them. Without striving to exhaust the entire subject matter of Arendt’s work, I would like to illustrate the difficulty of understanding the role forgiveness plays in her thought as well as to indicate possible solutions when forgiveness becomes unachievable within the framework of her considerations. Her reflection can be divided into two stages. The first is a focus on the idea of radical evil and the need to forgive perpetrators for their crimes. Second, under the influence of the Adolf Eichmann trial, she developed the idea of the banality of evil. This idea points to situations so terrible that they transcend all human moral judgment, making forgiveness impossible. However, even when the moral possibility of individual forgiveness has been rejected, when the legal possibility of seeking justice has been exhausted and when victims and perpetrators in the community are still unable to live together peacefully, Arendt’s thought leads us to the possibility of political reconciliation.

The aim of this article is to identify the main challenges for global ethics as an academic discipline. This article assesses the moral and practical justifications for common global principles. Individual and institutional responsibility on the supranational level is connected with the standard of human rights and the relational aspects of the globalised world. It also points out two separate problems which global ethics should aim to solve. The first is metatheoretical and methodological and concerns the discipline's lack of self-reflexiveness. The second is essential and concerns the clash of values . Regarding the second problem, the main future challenge of global ethics is to construct a measurement to bring political decisions closer to morality and more strongly connect rights with responsibilities

The purpose of the article is to show major contradictions between the federal concept of Europe that can be found in J. Habermas’s theory, confederative vision of E - W Böckenförde and A. Giddens’s theory of globalization. In this context I try to analyze the relationship between democracy and the national state. I focus also on the problem of the consequences of globalization (economical and political) that may go in two different directions by facilitating and hampering European integration. Finally, I sketch the Habermas’s federal conception of Europe and discuss the main of the European Union problems.

chapter aims at tracing the connections between global citizenship and global environmentalism at both, the theoretical and the practical level. At the theoretical level I define the notion of global citizenship referring to Nigel Dower's definition described in his book titled World Ethics - The New Agenda. Subsequently, I show that the idea of global citizenship is a part of global justice concept. At the first glance it seems to be a political concept, while it is primarily an ethical one. Therefore, not only does global justice concern war and peace but also environmental responsibility. Taking this into consideration I trace the relation between global citizenship and environmental responsibility on three levels, individual, social and political, all three being part of CSR.

The aim of the article is to outline and compare the way that Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt understand the spheree of politics as well as analyse the concepts of power and freedom connected with their theories. Both Schmitt and Arendt criticise liberal democracy for its “neutrality” and counterpoise it with their own understanding of political action. Especially Schmitt who understand such action as a conflict between friends and enemies. The analysis of their approach to the power and the contrasting their models of politics allows Wonicki to draw conclusions about contemporary liberalism and indicating its limits.