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Society and its purposeB.qxd:Rosmini volume 1.qxd 1/9/10 15:09 Page 1 A n t o n i o R PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS o s m i n i Volume 2 S o c i e t y a Society n d Antonio Rosmini i t and its (1797-1855) s P Society and its Purpose is the second and final volume of Rosmini's Philosophy of u Purpose Politics . In it, he examines the nature of all society before investigating the elements which form civil society. Social benevolence, freedom, equality, order and right are r discussed in depth. The inviolable rights of the individual, irrespective of membership p of any society, are established clearly before the author shows how morality ‘tempers o and reconciles social and extra-social right’. Society, which is non-existent without the presence of an invisible bond uniting the s persons who are its members, must of its nature respect these persons for what they e are; the single purpose of society is to provide them with ‘true, human good’, that is, moral contentment. Whatever detracts from this is per se anti-social. Civil society contributes to contentment of spirit in a special way. Rosmini shows how the general end of all society is specifically determined for civil society as a result of interaction between the practical reason of the people as a whole and the speculative reason of individuals. This interaction depends on virtue for its successful outcome. Rosmini rejects materialism as the determining factor of a successful society, is highly critical of exaggerated expectations as principles of progress, and sees stimulated, unrealisable capacities in the human heart as productive of immense political harm; only virtue can provide the substantial happiness which serves as a necessary basis for the degree of Antonio Rosmini contentment achieved in society. The human spirit as the seat of contentment is the end of politics; as agent modifying itself or acting upon external things for its own sake, it is the one means of politics on which all others depend. ISBN 978 1 899093 03 8 PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS ****** Society and its Purpose ANTONIO ROSMINI PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS Volume 2 Society and its Purpose Translated by DENIS CLEARY and TERENCE WATSON ROSMINI HOUSE DURHAM ©2010 T. Watson Translated from La società ed il suo fine Milan, 1837 Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used with permission. 1st. Edition: 1994 2nd. Edition: revised, corrected and reset, 2010 Typeset by Rosmini House, Durham Printed by Bell & Bain Limited, Glasgow ISBN 978 1 899093 03 8 Note Square brackets [ ] indicate notes or additions by the translators. References to this and other works of Rosmini are given by para- graph number unless otherwise stated. Abbreviations used for Rosmini’s quoted works are: AMS: Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science NE: A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas PE: Principles of Ethics SC: The Summary Cause for the Stability or Downfall of Human Societies Contents Introduction 1 Book One SOCIETY CHAPTER 1. The bonds uniting human beings with things and persons 10 CHAPTER 2. The social bond 12 CHAPTER 3. The bond of ownership and dominion 17 CHAPTER 4. How 18th century authors conceived the right of nature 24 CHAPTER 5. Social benevolence and friendship 32 CHAPTER 6. Social freedom 35 CHAPTER 7. Continuation 36 CHAPTER 8. Social equality 38 CHAPTER 9. Social order 39 CHAPTER 10. Social right 48 CHAPTER 11. Extra-social right 51 CHAPTER 12. Morality tempers and reconciles social and extra-social right 58 CHAPTER 13. Invisible and visible society 61 CHAPTER 14. Continuation 63 Book Two THE END OF SOCIETY Introduction 74 viii Contents CHAPTER 1. The end of every society must be a true, human good 75 CHAPTER 2. Human good 77 CHAPTER 3. Continuation: human good is not isolated pleasure but contentment 81 CHAPTER 4. Continuation: two elements of contentment, one necessary, the other willed 85 CHAPTER 5. The distinction between the final and proximate end of societies 88 CHAPTER 6. Continuation: the remote end is internal; the proximate end can be partly internal 92 CHAPTER 7. The political criterion drawn from the relationship between the two ends of society 93 CHAPTER 8. The error of those who tend to materialise society 94 CHAPTER 9. The determined and the undetermined proximate end of societies 96 CHAPTER 10. Duties of social government 97 CHAPTER 11. Human rights 98 CHAPTER 12. Possible collisions among human rights 100 CHAPTER 13. An example of the violation of human rights 107 CHAPTER 14. Independence 120 CHAPTER 15. Political parties 122 Book Three HOW THE PROXIMATE BUT THEORETICALLY UNDETERMNED END OF CIVIL SOCIETY BECOMES FACTUALLY DETERMINED Introduction 132 CHAPTER 1. The undetermined, proximate end of society is determined in fact by the practical reason of the masses, and by the speculative reason of individuals 133 Contents ix CHAPTER 2. The soundness and corruption of the practical reason of the masses prior to the institution of civil society 135 CHAPTER 3. The soundness and corruption of the practical reason of the masses during the four stages of civil society 141 CHAPTER 4. A special case: a civil society passes immediately from the stage of existence to that of wealth without passing through the stage of power 155 CHAPTER 5. The quantity of intelligence required to move the practical reason of the masses in the four social stages 163 CHAPTER 6. A provident law governing the dispersion and vicissitudes of peoples 178 CHAPTER 7. Summary 193 CHAPTER 8. How the error committed by the masses in determining the end of civil society depends for its degree of harm on the form of government 194 CHAPTER 9. The power of individual speculative reason in leading civil societies to their legitimate end — Individuals who prepare the way for the foundation of civil governments 200 CHAPTER 10. Continuation: founders and first legislators 207 CHAPTER 11. The power possessed by the reason of individuals in the reformation of nations which have arrived at the ultimate stage of corruption 209 CHAPTER 12. Continuation: conquerors 210 CHAPTER 13. Continuation: the second legislators; philosophers 216 CHAPTER 14. The various ways in which societies perish 226 CHAPTER 15. How Christianity brought back to life irremediably lost civil societies 228 CHAPTER 16. Morality restored to the world together with intelligence 241 CHAPTER 17. How Christianity saved human societies by directing itself to individuals, not to the masses 244 x Contents CHAPTER 18. How Christianity assisted humanity’s temporal interests by detaching humanity from them 252 CHAPTER 19. The political criterion drawn from the final end of civil societies concords with the teaching of Christianity 256 CHAPTER 20. The relationship between the two political criteria which depend on the end of society 257 Book Four PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS ACCORDING TO WHICH CIVIL SOCIETIES MOVE TOWARDS OR AWAY FROM THEIR END Introduction 262 CHAPTER 1. The three states of the human spirit: pleasant, content, happy 267 CHAPTER 2. The personal element in contentment 270 CHAPTER 3. The judgment which produces contentment constitutes EUDAIMONOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS in human beings 274 CHAPTER 4. The judgment which makes us content is an habitual, not merely actual judgment, producing a STATE of the human spirit 277 CHAPTER 5. The actions carried out by the human spirit in establishing its own contentment 281 CHAPTER 6. The objects which, because of their nature as real good, can contribute to the production of human contentment 285 CHAPTER 7. Corresponding evils 298 CHAPTER 8. Whether evil can be balanced and compensated by good 302 CHAPTER 9. Common errors about the total good existing in a given society 304 CHAPTER 10. Continuation 308 Contents xi CHAPTER 11. Does real good necessarily produce contentment of spirit? — The distinction between absolute and relative good 325 CHAPTER 12. The capacity of human desire 327 CHAPTER 13. Satisfied and unsatisfied capacity 330 CHAPTER 14. Errors of the sensists in rejecting the different degrees of capacity and contentment 331 CHAPTER 15. The two political systems of RESISTANCE and MOVEMENT 334 CHAPTER 16. The most frequent errors of supporters of both systems 336 CHAPTER 17. Continuation: the law governing the progress of the human race 337 CHAPTER 18. Continuation: another error of politicians who support movement 341 CHAPTER 19. Continuation: the third system, in addition to the systems of resistance and movement 343 CHAPTER 20. Continuation: does an increase in needs greater than the means for satisfying them obtain always and necessarily the effect claimed by political theorists who support movement? 347 CHAPTER 21. The system of movement as it effects Christian societies 368 CHAPTER 22. Continuation: the CAPACITY proper to Christian nations is infinite 371 CHAPTER 23. Continuation 376 CHAPTER 24. Continuation: how the infinite capacity of desire can endure without any determined object 387 CHAPTER 25. Continuation: the different states of unhappiness in the human spirit are reduced to a single formula 391 CHAPTER 26. A description of the various states of unhappiness in which the human spirit often finds itself 394 CHAPTER 27. Continuation: outlines of a map of the human heart 405 xii Contents CHAPTER 28. The hierarchy of the unsatisfiable capacities of the spirit 410 CHAPTER 29. Political harm arising from unsatisfied capacities 414 CHAPTER 30. The union of virtue and happiness 419 CHAPTER 31. Error in the political system of resistance 421 CHAPTER 32. Continuation: the natural movement of society 423 CHAPTER 33. Continuation 427 CHAPTER 34.