UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Contemporary Republicanism in Spain: Dialogues with Liberalism and the Left Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/29g0d8gf Author Cella, Paul Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Contemporary Republicanism in Spain: Dialogues with Liberalism and the Left A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literature by Paul Fitzgibbon Cella 2018 © Copyright by Paul Fitzgibbon Cella 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Contemporary Republicanism in Spain: Dialogues with Liberalism and the Left by Paul Fitzgibbon Cella Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor María Teresa de Zubiaurre, Chair This dissertation examines the work of three Spanish essayists, Salvador Giner, Helena Béjar, and Antoni Domènech, who defend republicanism, as opposed to liberalism or diverse left-wing alternatives, as the best current theory for articulating a progressive political vision. It argues that these essayists fruitfully complicate the “revival” of republican thought that began in Anglo- American academia in the late-twentieth century (and that is represented by J. G. A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and Philip Pettit) by turning the opposition between republicanism and (a relatively centrist) liberalism that is typical of the revival’s mainstream into a more dynamic discussion between republicanism, liberalism, and broadly left-wing positions, including various forms of Marxism, left-libertarianism and anti-statism, and post-modernism. Work that is being ii done in Spain yields a more nuanced definition of republicanism by giving reasons to prefer republicanism to political philosophies that raise different questions than liberalism does, and that challenge republicanism in ways that liberalism does not. Marxism is most appropriately met not through a discussion of liberty (liberal or republican?), but of how to explain social inequality and change (in conversation with Marxism, Giner and Béjar doubt that there is still a privileged revolutionary agent, like Marx’s proletariat); postmodern skepticism centers debates on the reliability of human reason, a subject about which liberals and republicans broadly agree and so rarely discuss (Domènech argues that it is important, pace postmodern relativists, that we be able confidently to denounce sources of social ills, and to do so on epistemologically secure ground); and anti-state theories invite principled defenses of the state form, which—perhaps because states are not in principle questioned by liberalism—are virtually absent from current republicanism (Giner defends the state because it can create conditions in which the typically diverse populations of modern Western countries can exchange conflicting ideas as civic and political equals). Spanish contributions to republicanism have been largely and unjustifiably overlooked. This dissertation partially remedies this oversight and calls for the work of Giner, Béjar, and Domènech to figure more prominently in political theoretical debates. iii The dissertation of Paul Fitzgibbon Cella is approved. Jesús Torrecilla Maarten H. van Delden Santiago Morales-Rivera Roberta L. Johnson María Teresa de Zubiaurre, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv To my parents, Marian and David, from whom I have learned. To my brother Joseph, with whom I have learned. To my nephew, Wyatt, in whom I hope to instill a love of learning. To Isaura: I am at my best when I do what you have taught me. v Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Mixed Ethical Foundations for a Paradoxical, Tragic Modernity: Salvador Giner’s Republicanism as a Way of Managing Social Conflict 31 - Defining Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics 37 - Deontology and Individual Liberty 44 - The Limits of Individual Liberty 50 - Consequentialism and Equality 61 - Virtue Ethics: Solidarity and Community 75 - In Defense of Sovereignty and the Rule of Law 90 - Collaboration and Agonism under Sovereign Rule 96 Chapter 2: Helena Béjar’s Republic of Relationships 103 - Béjar, in Dialogue with the History of Ideas 110 - Homo Clausus: Individual Autonomy and Authenticity in Modernity 119 - Volunteer Philanthropy in Action 134 - Christianity and Compassion: Preferring the Good Samaritan to Cain 143 - Patriotism and Nationalism, Collective Identity from Right to Left 157 Chapter 3: Antoni Domènech: On Republicanism, Individual Freedom, and Natural Rights 181 - Liberal and Republican Concepts of Freedom and Rights 184 - The French Revolution: A Political and Philosophical Turning Point 196 - Ortega y Gasset: Liberalism and Authority 220 - Fascism and Liberalism 227 vi - Neoliberalism and Fascism 236 - Postmodernism’s Mistakes 242 - The Universal Basic Income, or the Freedom to Live without Permission 250 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 264 vii Acknowledgements I thank Professor María Teresa de Zubiaurre, my dissertation committee chair, for her rigorous and thoughtful guidance and careful reading of my work, and Professors Jesús Torrecilla, Maarten H. van Delden, Santiago Morales-Rivera, and Roberta L. Johnson for their helpful observations and questions. viii Biographical Sketch In 2006, I received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and History (double major) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. From 2006-2008, I worked in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois as a project manager in the field of medical translation and as a licensed freelance translator and interpreter. From 2008-2010, I worked as an English teacher (in an elementary school and as a private tutor) in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. In 2010, I entered a Master’s program in Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles, which I completed in spring 2012. In fall 2012, I began the PhD program in Hispanic Languages and Literatures in the same department. As a Master’s and PhD student, several awards have allowed me to devote time to study and to advance my research. These include a UCLA Chancellor’s Prize (2010), Del Amo Fellowships (2010-11 and 2012-13), Graduate Research Mentorship (2014-15), and two Graduate Summer Research Mentorships (2013 and 2014). My graduate training has also been enhanced thanks to research apprenticeships in UCLA’s Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies (2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18) and Department of Theater (Summers 2015 and 2017)—the latter with funding from UCLA Arts Initiative Grants—and teaching apprenticeships in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (2011-12, 2013-14, and 2016-17). I have been honored to serve as president (2013-14) and secretary (2012-13) of the Graduate Student Association of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, as a member of UCLA’s Working Group on the Spanish Comedia in Translation and Performance (2014-2018), and on the organization committee for LA Escena, Los Angeles’ first Hispanic classical theater festival, which will take place in September 2018. My participation in the Working Group has led to several collaborative publications, including a forthcoming introduction to a translation of Félix Lope de Vega’s La noche toledana ix (with Adrián Collado), a forthcoming introduction to a translation of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s Los empeños de un engaño (with Javier Patiño Loira), and forthcoming translations of La fuerza de la costumbre by Guillén de Castro, La viuda valenciana by Lope de Vega, La noche toledana and Los empeños de un engaño (with the Working Group on the Spanish Comedia in Translation and Performance). x Introduction Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America, written in 1955, was a bold and confident book. Published when America’s liberal politics and liberal capitalist economics were riding high on the wave of victory over fascism in World War II, and, in Hartz’s words, were still looking forward to “emerge as the leading national power in the struggle against the Communist revolution” (284), the book argued that America’s founding in the 1770s and 1780s, and American socio-political history in general owed virtually all its intellectual debts to John Locke’s theory of limited, liberal government—in short, that America “[began] with Locke” and “[stayed] with Locke” (6). Hartz seemed to suggest, if you are not a Lockean liberal, you are out of step with the American political tradition, and therefore not in sync with the political common sense of the world’s most powerful and promising country. For Hartz, to be American was to be Lockean, modern, and, most importantly in a world political context, to bear great responsibility as a citizen of the United States, the country that “people everywhere rely upon [. .] for the retention of what is best in [liberalism],” which included Hartz’s essentially individualistic notion of a “Western concept of personality” (308). So, in theoretical terms, Locke’s individualistic dictum that states are established to protect each person’s rights to “life, liberty, and property”—which had obviously influenced Thomas Jefferson’s foundational “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—seemed quintessentially modern; in practical terms, it was vitally necessary “in an age of world turmoil.” It was also, therefore, something difficult to reject, lest one court anachronism, or imperil the fate of nations. Hartz’s paradigm