The publication of Reid's Essays on the Active Powers of Man in 1788 fully completed his project, begun in 1785 with his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, to present to the public the substance of his lectures and reflections during his tenure as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. The Active Powers comprises five essays on the metaphysics of causation and the foundation of morals--four essays dealing with causation, motivation, and human liberty, and a fifth containing the main lines of his theory of morals and critique of Hume's moral theory. Unlike the Intellectual Powers, and unlike his first book, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), the Active Powers has kept the attention of few philosophers and scholars. Even those who have turned its pages are unclear about the central doctrines contained therein, and are accordingly undecided as to their implications and philosophical merits. Through a critical reconstruction of the Active Powers, this thesis remedies a long-standing neglect. After an extensive developmental exploration of Reid's epistemological designs and the naturalistic stamp of his theory of knowledge, I turn to his Active Powers and argue that the unifying doctrine of the essays is man's moral liberty, a doctrine that he supports with two strategic theses--first, that the only legitimate kind of cause, an efficient cause, is always an intelligent agent and, second, that men are efficient causes which act on rational motives. The first thesis has genuine religious implications, especially for his epistemology, but he cannot hold it, I argue, without also proving the second. Initially unable to do this, as a comparison with Hume demonstrates, Reid must then outline the nature of efficient causation by reason alone, and must prove that humans are efficient causes by rendering consistent our commitment to the durable causal principle, Every event must have an efficient cause that produced it, and what is necessarily demanded by our natural system of morals. Although the balance between animal motivation and the practical ends provided by reason is uneven, only the latter enable men to have moral liberty and make it possible for us both to accept the causal principle and to have the freedom required by our system of morals. Unfortunately, I argue, Reid's need for the motivation of reasons, or "rational principles of action," entails an untoward paradox: Either no efficient cause acts on reasons or liberty is simply irrelevant to our acting morally. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

La notion d'autorité parentale est certes inscrite dans la loi, mais celle-ci ne nous dit pas grand chose quant aux processus qu'elle met en jeu. Ce travail essaie non seulement de différencier l'autorité du pouvoir, à l'instar de la légitimité et de la légalité, mais aussi de proposer une explication de cette notion, qui prend sa source dans ce que l'on appelle l'axiologie. L'étude menée propose de comprendre l'autorité autrement que par sa seule dimension de relation à autrui, pour la considérer selon un angle relevant d'un registre de la rationalité humaine dit éthico-moral, qui ne fait pas appel, du point de vue des processus qu'il suppose, à la dimension de l 'altérité. Par ailleurs, la prise en compte de l 'enfance et la compréhension de ce dont il est question lorsqu'on évoque la parentalité ne sont pas étrangères à la façon dont on considère l'autorité de nos jours. Il apparaît alors primordial de savoir déterminer les capacités de l'enfant, tout autant que la responsabilité des parents pour rendre compte du processus d'autorité chez les enfants, chez les parents, et bien sûr dans la relation éducative qui les lie. Nous considérerons le processus d'autorité comme un autocontrôle, une retenue dont chacun fait preuve, hors pathologie, et qui relève d'un fonctionnement spécifiquement humain. La dernière partie de notre travail s'attachera ainsi à comprendre dans quelle mesure nous pouvons aider l'enfant à mettre cette autorité en oeuvre et en quoi cela apparaît nécessaire à son développement, eu égard en particulier à la problématique de la liberté. / The idea of parental authority may appear in the law but the law tells very little when it comes to its process. This study is trying to distinguish authority from power, as legitimacy from lawfulness, but also to suggest an explanation of the notion through axiology. This research intends to understand authority differently than a sole relation to others, and harvests both the ethical and moral fields however not through otherness. Furthermore, the way we consider childhood and understand parenthood nowadays does not fall far from considering authority itself. Thus, it seems of primordial importance to be able to determine the child's capacities as much as his or her parents's responsibility in order to carry out a proper research on the authority process throughout the child's upbringing. Just like restraint lies in everyone, we consider this process comes from self-control (no pathology included), which falls within human specificities. The last part of this work will focus on understanding how the child can be helped to carry out this authority and why it appears necessary to his or her development, particularly if we take into account the moral liberty this process seems to enable us with.