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Ethics and Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Norberto Bobbio
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Extract

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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 between politics and morals is the best known, due to the length of the debate, the authority of the authors who took part, the variety of the arguments put forth and the importance of the subject, it is not that different from the issue of the relation between morals and all other human activity; thus the fact that we can readily speak of the ethics of economic relations or, as often the case over the last few years, of market ethics, or sexual ethics, medical ethics, the ethics of sports and still others. In all these diverse spheres of human activity, the same problem always arises: the distinction between what is morally licit and what is morally illicit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 46 , Issue 182 , June 1998 , pp. 13 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. This essay by Norberto Bobbio first appeared in Italian in Elogio della mitezza a altri scritti morali (Milan, 1994). It was republished under the same title by Edi zioni Pratiche (Milan, 1998), revised and updated by the author.

2. A. Sen, Mercato e morale, “Biblioteca della libertà,” pp. 8-27, n. 94 (1986).

3. I am referring here to J. Burnham, The Machiavellians Defenders of Freedom, (New York, 1943).

4. B. Croce, “L'onestà politica,” in Etica e politica (Bari, Laterza 1945), p. 165.

5. This term has been an ongoing problem in English translation: it reflects the various notions of strength, courage, manliness, ingenuity, character, wisdom, virtue, power to do good, etc. (Trans. note).

6. N. Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Angelo M. Codeviila (London, 1977), p. 65.

7. D. Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, trans. Lester K. Born, (New York, 1973), p. 151.

8. Ibid., p. 151.

9. Ibid., p. 154.

10. I. Kant, Perpetual Peace: a Philosophical Essay, trans. M. Campbell Smith (New York, 1915), Appendix I, p. 162.

11. P J. Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, trans. M.J. Tooley (Oxford, N.D), p. 63.

12. B. Croce, p. 166.

13. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox (London, 1967), p. 6.

14. Ibid., p. 215.

15. Here is the entire passage: “[…] and in the actions of all men and especially of princes, where there is no judgement to call upon, one looks to the results. Therefore let a prince win and keep the state.” (London, 1997), p. 67. (Trans. note)

16. N. Machiavelli. Discourses upon the first ten books of Tite Livius, trans. Leslie J. Walker, (Middelsex, 1970). t. III-41, p. 515.

17. A.Yanov, The Origins of Autocracy. Ivan the Terrible in Russian History, trans. Stephen Dunn (Los Angeles, 1981).

18. A. Yanov, p. 316.

19. Ibid., p. 307.

20. Ibid., p. 254.