Norberto Bobbio

Ethics and Politics

Increasingly frequent discussions in our country over the last few years on the question of morals have roused the old theme of the relation between morals and politics-’ Although it is an old theme, it is nevertheless a theme that remains new, which explains why no moral question, regardless of the field in which it has been raised, has ever found a definitive answer. While the issue of the relation

In Praise of La Mitezza

Among the ancients, ethics was resolved largely through the treatment of virtues. Suffice it to recall Aristotle’s Etica Nicomachea, which was for many centuries a prescribed text.’ In our times such a treatment has almost disappeared. Today moral philosophers discuss values and choices, on both analytical and propositional levels, and their major or minor rationality, as well as discussing rules or norms and consequently rights and duties. One of the last significant writings devoted to the classic subject of virtue was the second part of Kant’s Metaphysics of Nlorals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten), titled The Theory of Virtue (Die Tugendlehre), the first part of which discusses the Theory of Law (Die Rechtlehre). I-Iowcver, ICant’s ethics is especially one of duty, and more specifically of inward as distinguished from outward duty, with which the theory of law is concerned. In the former, virtue is defined as the necessary willpower to accomplish one’s duty, as the moral strength required by man to fight those defects which prevent or become an obstacle

Which Socialism? Marxism, Socialism, and Democracy

Introduction. 1. A socialist democracy?. 2. Is there a Marxist doctrine of the state?. 3. What alternatives are there to representative democracy?. 4. Why democracy?. 5. Which socialism?. 6. Is there a Marxist doctrine of the state?A reply by Antonio Negri. 7. Gramsci and the conception of civil society. 8. Marxism and socialism. 9. Marx and classics. 10. Marxism and international relations. Notes. Index.