The politics of mortality.

详细信息   

• 作者：McClure ; Christopher S.
• 学历：Ph.D.
• 年：2011
• 导师：Deneen, Patrick J.,eadvisorBoyd, Richard A.ecommittee memberMara, Geraldecommittee memberMitchell, Joshuaecommittee member
• 毕业院校：Georgetown University
• Department：Government
• ISBN：9781124507873
• CBH：3443980
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：889977
• Pages：223

文摘

In order to enable individuals to pursue their goals freely, liberal societies require a high degree of ambiguity regarding the meaning of mortality. This ambiguity and underlying anxiety are the price of the social peace and political stability at which liberalism aims, and they decisively shape the modern ideals of freedom and autonomy. Liberalism's neutrality is only possible because of a distinctly modern way of thinking about mortality, which is characterized by the impossibility of having certain knowledge about the meaning of death. Individuals are free to find meaning where they will, and this explains why older forms of the desire for immortality persist in altered form. But that meaning can never be as certain as it was when shared by a whole community or grounded in knowledge of a realm beyond this world. This ambiguity creates an underlying sense of anxiety about the validity of various sources of meaning, but does not extinguish those sources. Rather than being anxious about whether one was destined for heaven or hell, or about dying dishonorably, individuals today are often driven by anxiety about whether there is any sort of afterlife, and whether things like honor and hopes for some kind of immortality really matter at all. Liberalism, then, is not as shallowly materialistic and nihilistic as many detractors claim, nor is the desire for self-preservation simply its highest goal. On the other hand, the anxiety that stems from this ambiguity does instill among many an aversion to thinking about death, and longevity does become a more important goal than it once was. This ambiguity, moreover, is necessary for a peaceful society in which individuals are free to pursue their own goals. I examine the thought of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Muhammad Iqbal and Martin Heidegger.