- 著者
-
桜井 徹
- 出版者
- 日本法哲学会
- 雑誌
- 法哲学年報 (ISSN:03872890)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.2007, pp.1-13, 2008 (Released:2021-03-31)
The Annual Meeting of Legal Philosophy 2007 was held at Doshisha University on November 10-11 2007. Its main theme was “What is Modernity for the History of Legal Ideas?”, and nine speakers and one commentator were invited to discuss the meaning and importance of modernity for contemporary legal philosophers.
The keynote speech points out that such distinguished thinkers as Hannah Arendt and Charles Taylor use the concept of “alienation” to characterize the intellectual and material movement of modernity. Taylor describes a significant feature of the modern self as “disengaged” not only from the outer world but also from its own body, abilities, inclinations and experiences; it can now work on and discipline these properties until they meet the desired specification. According to Taylor, the modern self that can thus remake Itself is a “punctual” self. Punctual self is a necessary condition not only of what C. B. Macpherson calls “possessive individualism”, but also of social contract theory, since only individuals capable of absolute self-ownership can commit themselves
to greater political society and its rulers.
The speech also points out that David Hume dramatically reduces Lockean punctual self to “a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearances”, and thereby anticipates the subsequent disintegrative process of modern disengaged self. Moreover, Hume asserts that we must first enter a sort of “convention”, that is, “a general sense of common interest; ...which induces them [all the member of the society] to regulate their conduct by certain rules”, in order to establish the rules of private property and of promise. The author claims that Hume’s ideas of the personal identity and the basic rules of conduct suggest a sort of “post modern” insights into the fundamental structure of modern society.