Poor liberal democracy and not effective electoral politics can be explained by the only reason - the population almost in ALL countries have no idea about their civil responsibilities. These peices of knowledge are out of process of study practically everywhere. But it is quite clear that only best philosophical ideas can educate, consolidate and transform Humanity into modern CITIZENSHIP of the Earth-XXI. If it is a point of interest, then one should know that there is a WPF Global project "Earth-XXI CITIZENSHIP" - Establishment of World (Earth) community of Earth citizens - Earth CIVILIZATION educated & certified in branches of WPF Socratic Philosophical School You can find it at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/wcitiz.htm

Probably not so much in legal philosophy per se, but in political theory. You might find my recent paper of interest, as it explores the historical and philosophical relationship between constitutionalism, democracy/rights and science on the one hand and the broader philosophical context on the other. Existentialism probably arose from the same [metaphysical] conditions that produced constitutionalism, so at best it can exist in some kind of dialectic with it, but not supersede it. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2128639

John: Thank you for sharing your paper! I look forward to reading it over the weekend. Thus far my experience with Sartre has been from the political theory and literary side of things rather than the legal, e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The French jurist Rene Cassin was an important contributor to the drafting of the declaration and the drafting itself was a major event during much of the same period that Sartre is working on his Notebooks for an Ethics (the principal text I was originally engaging with for my masters thesis). Cassin also chaired / introduced Sartre's 1947 lecture based on his book Anti-Semite and the Jew. Yet Sartre remains committed primarily to revolution, choosing to go in the direction opposite of republicanism. I have to re-check some things, but I don't think Sartre's Les Temps Modernes really engages with this important event.

I suspect that contemporary Anglo-American legal philosophy hasn't dealt very deeply or directly with Sartre. He's squarely in the continental tradition (and analytic philosophy, for example, is notorious for its separation from the former) and he's not operating specifically in legal philosophy. Now Carl Schmitt (for better or worse) is probably a different story. Then there's John Rawls and Robert Nozick...

There is a passage in Sartre's "What is Literature?" (1947) that, I think, poses the inevitable conflict between existentialism and constitutionalism though it's primarily related to the writer in society: "...it is not enough to accord the writer freedom to say everything; he must write for a public which has the freedom of changing everything; which means, besides suppression of classes, abolition of all dictatorship, **constant renewal of frameworks, and the continuous overthrowing of order once it tends to congeal**." A form of (non-Trotskyist) permanent revolution, as he puts it. Sartre also speaks about a "collectivity which constantly corrects, judges, and metamorphoses itself" and "a society without classes, without dictatorship, and **without stability**". Sartre wants to supersede the structures and social relations that constitutionalism upholds and regulates, but I also agree that existentialism can't. This is not to say that constitutionalism provides stability in practice, as many African-American and other minority communities in the US and the UK can attest to vis-a-vis the police and the State. Moreover, in the US we're also still arguing over who is the final interpreter of the Constitution--the Supreme Court? the executive? Congress? the people?

Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a nice document. But according to logic of the scientific philosophy together with Rights always there should be Duties (or Responsibilities). One can see such a document (the Universal Declaration of Human Duties) which I recommend you to see as well at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/undhd.htm

Hi Igor. Thank you for your responses. I want to respond in more detail, but for the moment I have a few questions. Could you explain more precisely what is "scientific philosophy"? What is the role / identity of God in your UDHD? And where does (Western) philosophy fall into error? In the youtube video of the 2nd World Philosophical Forum conference, a priest talked about the necessity of permanent values, i.e., ahistorical values. (And he briefly mentioned Heidegger in what sounded like a reference to the early-mid 20th Century European debate on humanism / anti-humanism. At least in the history of 20th Century continental philosophy and critical theory, this is an important debate (Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Camus...).

Hi Peter. The "scientific philosophy" it is a philosophy based on science oppositely to philosophy based on various mythologems. One of them connected with the God. Who trust in God is just a ignorant person being too far from the scientific picture of the world. See at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/offpap/top2/index.htm

(Western) philosophy fell into error after the Edict of the last Roman emperor Justinian I, who in 529 AD together with Roman-Greek paganism prohibited the teaching in Athens Academy of Plato, which was placed under strict state control, effectively strangling this training-school for Hellenism. He closed all the philosophical schools of Athens and banished their teachers to Persia. Thus, together with paganism all those brilliant ideas of dialectical Classical Philosophy were buried for the Humanity for long centuries and did not recover fully until nowadays.

See at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/train/train0.htm

About the permanent values see at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/offpap/top5/index.htm

Regards

Is it possible to discuss existentialism without ending with a judgmental argument – we Americans tend to think in simple concrete terms – existentialists are atheists who possess little moral backbone, and they wish only to practice anarchy, nihilism, and a general perspective that nothing is worthwhile and it is pointless to care about anything. We extrapolate from this the further belief that the enemy jihadists that do not believe in our God, that they believe Hell is a place for others, therefore they are an affront to the true God and their death is proper.

Jean-Paul Sartre said that he was an atheist and an existentialist, however study has shown that most existentialistic believers do in fact hold some level of believe, if not in God some sort of belief system that incorporates a sense of ethics. In the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Blackburn) points out that “Different writers who united in stressing the importance of these themes nevertheless developed very different ethical and metaphysical systems as a consequence” (p 130).

In Sartre’s notebooks we find the words – “A classification of values must lead to freedom: Classification in such an order as to make freedom more and more apparent. At the top: generosity.” I interpret this to mean that values and ethics are not important to freedom, yet it is imperative that individuals find freedom within their societal framework. Since Sartre also claims to be a Humanist he bequeaths to himself the right to judge others. Kaufmann agrees that Sartre is an existentialist and a humanist and does reserve to himself the right to judge others based on his interpretation of truth.

“Freedom of choice, individual dignity, personal love, and creative effort are the existentialist values, and, generally speaking, the most important among these are freedom of choice and individual dignity.” (Olson, pp 17-18). Sartre defined ethics as a system, a form of logic, wherein a set of formulas determined the right a wrong of an action or process. Ethics apply across cultures, morality on the other hand is a set of rules governing a society or group which defines conformity. Here is where Sartre and Western thought part company. He believes personal morality and ethics supersede popular or community morality and ethics; what is moral might not be ethical!

Religious morality often conflicts with social ethics – abortion is a good example. However, Nietzsche is far more radical than Sartre when it comes to rejecting society ethics. If we are to believe that ethics are simply a means to fit our beliefs into an acceptable framework, how can we then believe in free will?

Existentialism, in Jaspers and Merleau-Ponty's versions, can be very useful in legal theory, when we are going to study hermeneutics, because of their studies on perception. The problem of antinomies has been well treated by Merleau-Ponty in his Fenomenology of perception. The question of free will is not beyond controversies, for it is distinguished of freedom in Kant's work and Schopenhauer even denies its existence.

“But according to logic of the scientific philosophy together with Rights always there should be Duties (or Responsibilities).”

After reviewing the string of comments, I think Igor Kondrashin hit upon the most useful line of inquiry with the above quote. That is to say, in terms of raising fruitful opposition to the “rights culture” that is the predominant modus operandi in America. In this vein, might I suggest the Communitarian philosophy of Amitai Etzioni as a philosophy with more currency than existentialism, which as Mike Coston points out, is way too abstract for the typical American to endorse as standing for anything other than Bourgeoisie intellectualism. See, for instance, THE NEW GOLDEN RULE: COMMUNITY AND MORALITY IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, Etzioni (1996, Basic Books). Gwen

Re: Schwarz Comment about lingering Amercian debate as to "who is the final interpreter of the Constitution--the Supreme Court? the executive? Congress? the people?"

Hi Peter,

Unfortunately, there is one more choice in interpreting the Constitution -- and it is one that I find particularly objectionable; namely, "original intent". In other words, "What did the white men (some of whom were slaveowners) who wrote the U.S. Constitution 'intend' to accomplish by the use of the particular wording/language in question?"

Although searching for the "original intent" is extremely popular with the conservative element, I for one view the original intent of our nation's forefathers with the hermeneutics of suspicion.

Gwen

Ronald Dworkin briefly (but quite positively) discusses Sartre in Justice for Hedgehogs, at 210 and (especially) 231.

Martijn: Thank you for the Dworkin suggestion. I will check out Dworkin's book to see what he says.