Test Project

In other words, to introduce a formula used in the Declaration of Independence. civil society makes possible the pursuit of happiness, but not happiness. That is the affair of the individuals. [Foom?] this follows a point with which Marx was very much concerned: a split between the public life and the private life. between the division or subject. on the one hand. and the private individual. The citizen is concerned with a self-preservation. The whole apparatus of the state is nothing but a big apparatue for self-perservation as you can see even today if you consider the importance of police officers. But now it is important: while the self-preservation is the basic thing which has an objective charactoer that - what we desire. that we desire. is happiness, because we want self-preservation but no one is siatsifed with mere preservation. So the higher is private. The public is the basic but not very exciting. One-- in the language of Locke. for example, one would have to say there is a difference between self-preservation. bare self-preservation. and comfortable self-preservation. The bare self-preservation is guaranteed by the government. Comfortable self-preservation : that is everybody's own business. Now you see here in [germ?] the distinction between state and society. The state takes care of self-preservation by guaranteeing the security of each. but the real life of man. the interesting life of man. concerns not bare self-preservation. but the comfortable self-preservation which can even consist. for example. in going to theaters .[Yes]? Some people need that for their happiness. but that is nothing for the state. So when- state. the formula of Max Weber. is characterised by the monopoly of compulsion and that has. according to the original notion. the function of guaranteeing self-preservation. Society is the sphere of freedom where everyone tries to do and does to some extent : what he wants. The freedom ... but naturally freedom in and through competition. and one of the great objections of Max against the earlier doctrines is that they did not succeed in bridging the gulf between state and society and therefore the only solution in his opinion is abolish the state in the end. but that stems from this basic principle which we [did?] already in the first wave.

Now we could turn to the second wave which is much closer to Marx and about which I have to speak at much greater length. Now I would like first to say a very general word about Rousseau. I think it is time that this be said again. When we look at these great antagonists around 1789 after Rousseau.s death but still he was still very much alive because there was a French Revolution going on [merely]? Burke and Rousseau. I for one cannot help feeling that Burke is a much sounder better helper for practical politics than Rousseau is but on the other hand one must also say and especially today where we all are so very conservative that however impossible Rousseaus doctrine is true but it is a repeat that is not meant to say that Rousseaus doctrine is true but it is a very profound and seminal doctrine. Now Rousseau began his career with a prize essay on the sciences and arts. the so-called First Discourse. in which he attacked the sciences and arts in the name of virtue. Within - the politcal meaning of this writing is this: the ancients talk in their political writing all the time of virtue. The moderns talk all the time of trade and money. You see how strong the economic element was at the very beginning in modern political thought and Rousseau takes. in this respect. the side of the ancients. Furthermore. in the first wave of modern political philosophy enlightenment played an absolutely decisive role. One can state this precisely as follows. Self-preservation is the principle and self-preservation means also. practically speaking. fear of death. What Hobbes says or presupposes - he says fear of death is the greatest power [ ir?]

human life and that is by no means necessarily so as no one know better than Hobbes because many people fear punishment after death more than death. So Hobbes: doctrine presupposes: in order to become operative. that the fear of punishment after death ceases to be important and this will cease to be important only by means of enlightenment. by the fact that people learn either that there is no punishment after death -- yes. that there is no punishment after death in any serious sense. So the enlightenment is absolutely essential for the first wave of modernity and Rousseau begins his career wth an attach on that enlightenment. We must keep this in mind. We must see what this means. There is a connection between Rousseau.s attack on the Enlightenment and his appeal to virtue because this teaching of men like Hobbes and Locke degrades virtue to a means for self-preservation. It makes virtue instrumental or utilitarian. Why --what is goodness? Goodness is the habit by virtue of which you have a greater chance to survive. That is not what decent men understand by virtue and Rousseau acted --reacted correspondingly. But the --so this is --but Rousseau is simply a protect of --Rousseau begins with protest of moral common sense against these subversive doctrines. Yet Rousseau does not simply reject Hobbes or simply return to Aristotle. He never does that. He transforms Hobbes on the Hobbian basis and that is important to understand and I will proceed step by step. I have to read to you a message from Hobbes to show that. Yes- Now. Hobbes had taught regarding virtues: Virtue is identical with peaceableness. Self-preservation as possible only in peace as you know either from your own experience or from many historical books [in ?]. So that habit which enable man to live in peace is peaceableness which consists of various parts. Now one part is especially interesting in our present connection: Hobbes Leviathan. Chapter 15. "The question who is the better man has no place in the condition of mere nature: where. (as has been shown before. all men are equal. the inequality that now is has been introduced by the [ ?] civil. All inequality. in other words. is legal or conventional. "I know that Aristole in the first book of hiw Politices: for a foundation of his doctrine. makes man by nature. some more worthy to command. meanin the wiser sort (such as he though himself to be for his philosophy:) others to serve. (meaning those he thought himself to be for his philosophy:) others to serve. (meaning those that had strong bodies. but were not philosophers as he) as if master and servant were not introduced by consent of men. but by difference of wit: which is not only against reason: but also against experience. For there are very few so foolish. that had not rather govern themselves. than to be governed by others. Nor when the wise in their own conceit, contend by force. with them who distrust their own wisdom. do they alays. or often. or almost at any time. get the victory. If nature therefore have made men equal. that equalithy is to be acknowledged: or if nature have made man unequal that equality is to be acknowledged: or if nature have made man unequal: - Hobbes reminds himself for one moment of thi own wit. You [?] ....yet because men [?] think themselves equal. will not enter into conditons of peace. but upon equal term. such equality must be admitted." In other words. Hobbes does not really say all men are equal. but he says you have to - as don't know whether they are equal or not. but we have to act on the principle that they are equal. "And therefore for the ninth law of nature" - law of nature menas here a moral law - " I put this. that every man acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is pride. " Now-pride. regarding the ones that are superior. With a view to natural equality. man ought to treat everyone else as his equal by nature. yet. as Hobbes admits. civil society is a state of inequality. You at least have the inequality of the governors and the governed or also the rich and the poor. Furthermore. the right of self-preservation which - from which Hobbes starts implies the right of everyone to be the judge of the means of self-preservation. That follows under certain conditions. Yes? I mean. if you are - have the right to self-preservation you have the right