Prof. H.P.P. Lotter

Ethics in the international relations is usually based on the assumption that states represents an ethically relevant subject. The thesis challenges the assuption, that existing states could be legitimized on the general principles of universal ethics in any other way than as a "realm of necessity" and inquires the conseqeuncesof the lack of domestic legitimity on the ethical assertion of the state's conduct abroad.

This dissertation tries to locate Milton's optimistic view of man and nature as expressed in Comus, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and Paradise Lost in the long tradition of natural law that goes back to Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas.

<p>This thesis is mainly a critical examination of Professor Mark C. Murphy’s theory of defectiveness. In his view, being backed by decisive reasons for action is a standard internal to legality, to the property of being law, such that a law or a legal system that is not backed by decisive reasons for action fails to measure up and thus, is <em>defective</em> qua law or legal system. Following a short introduction, I will devote chapter I to presenting Professor Murphy’s theory of defectiveness in the context of his defence of the natural law tradition. In the remaining two chapters, I shall state and assess two types of argument in support of this main thesis. Chapter II is concerned with the functional argument, which holds that law’s characteristic activity, thus law’s function, is to provide dictates backed by decisive reasons for action. I criticize Murphy’s account claiming that his explanation is bereft of a causal mechanism that links certain characteristic activities with certain effects, which is the main element of non-agentive functional explanations. The different type of argument that attempts to present the presence of decisive reasons as a non-defectiveness condition of illocutionary acts in general, and thus for legal illocutionary acts, is considered in chapter III. Here, I argue that Murphy’s position is not supported by the orthodox theory of illocutionary acts. From this I conclude that we have reason to doubt Professor Murphy’s success in providing an appropriate theory of legal defectiveness.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

The work deals with the characteristics of natural law in the Sum of theological St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as what natural law is and the question of the philosophical problem of natural law. The aim of the work is to point out the place and role of natural law in the Theological Sum.At the end of the work synthesize individual chapter and subchapters and do an analythical analysis of natural law in the Theological Sum. The name of my work is the place and role of the Natural law in the Theological Sum of St. Thomas Aquinas.

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In deliberating on the application of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment, the Supreme Court since 1947 has consistently failed to develop a principled distinction between religion and non-religion. This has hampered its ability to respond to developing challenges in Religion Clauses jurisprudence and to interpret those clauses in a systematic manner. Its recourse to facile characterizations of secularism and pluralism has exacerbated this problem. Attending to incoherence in the Court’s understanding of religion points to a definition of religion based in revelation and grounded not in the language of preference, identity or value, but in natural law and metaphysics. / text

<p>The Laws is generally regarded as Plato’s attempt to engage with the practical realities of political life, as opposed to the more idealistic, or utopian, vision of the Republic. Yet modern scholars have often felt disquieted at the central role of religion in the Laws’ second-best city and regime. There are essentially the two dominant interpretations on offer today: either religion supports a repressive theocracy, which controls every aspect of the citizens’ lives to such an extent that even philosophy itself is discouraged, or religion is an example of the kind of noble lie, which the philosopher must deceive the citizens into believing—viz., that a god, not a man, is the author of the regime’s laws. I argue that neither of these interpretations do justice to the dialogue’s intricately dramatic structure, and therefore to Plato’s treatment of civil religion. What I propose is a third position in which Plato both takes seriously the social and political utility of religion, and views theology as a legitimate, and even necessary, subject of philosophical inquiry without going so far as to advocate theocracy as the second best form of regime. </p><p>I conclude that a proper focus on the dialogue form, combined with a careful historical analysis of Plato’s use of social and political institutions, reveals an innovative yet traditional form of civil religion, purified of the harmful influence of the poets, based on the authority of the oracle at Delphi, and grounded on a philosophical conception of god as the eternal source of order, wisdom, and all that is good. Through a union of traditional Delphic theology and Platonic natural theology, Plato gives the city of the Laws a common cult acceptable to philosopher and non-philosopher alike, and thus, not only bridges the gap between religion and philosophy, but also creates a sense of community, political identity, and social harmony—the prerequisites for political order and stability. The political theology of the Laws, therefore, provides a rational defense of the rule of law (νόμος) re-conceived as the application of divine Reason (νοῦς) to human affairs.</p> / Dissertation

The development of political modernity in Europe entailed a process whereby formerly important political forms increasingly lost significance and were transformed in a long process that led to the separation of individuals from political power, in the distinctive shape of modern (depoliticised) civil society and the state. The thought of G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), which has fundamentally shaped the modern understanding of these developments, came to its maturity at the most advanced stage of this process, while the French Revolution was transforming the continental world. He thought through this process from a very early stage in his development (1800–4), and thereby formed the essentials of his political theory. But on the cusp of this modernity Hegel seemed to affirm what has appeared to many as the old powers that had disappeared in the formation of the modern state – the Stände. For many he thereby turned his political thought into an apparent anachronism. This dissertation, however, will argue that Hegel’s thought remains fundamentally modern and not at all anachronistic in its affirmation of the Stände. On the contrary, it is only through an examination of the concept of the Stände in Hegel’s thought, that one can fully understand the essentially institutional focus of his politics. This dissertation will argue for the significance of the concept of the Stände through historically situating Hegel’s thought and its engagement with the modern tradition. It will do so through a methodological examination of the concept in Hegel’s early period (1800–4) where the institutional character of his politics is first shaped and formed, in the perspective of insights from his mature political philosophy (1820/21). In so doing it will show how the concept of the Stände and the institutionalism it implies form Hegel’s unique response to the development of modern civil society.