display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 21055 | Our aim is a constitution which combines maximum freedom with strong restraint [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The highest task which nature has set mankind is to establish a society in which freedom under external laws would be combined to the greatest possible extent with irresistible force, in other words of establishing a perfectly just constitution. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 5th) | |
| A reaction: The 'force' is to restrict the harms that may result from individual freedom. This seems to equate justice with liberal freedom. Force can prevent direct harm to others, but what to do about indirect harm? Many lack freedom, but whose fault is it? |
| 21056 | The vitality of business needs maximum freedom (while avoiding harm to others) [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the citizen is deterred from seeking his personal welfare in any way he chooses which is consistent with the freedom of others, the vitality of business in general and hence also the strength of the whole are held in check. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 8th) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather American view of liberalism. Kant has been praising the virtues of aggressive competition. |
| 7337 | In Mosaic legal theory, crimes are sins and sins are crimes [Johnson,P] |
| Full Idea: In Mosaic legal theory, all breaches of the law offend God. All crimes are sins, just as all sins are crimes. | |
| From: Paul Johnson (The History of the Jews [1987], Pt I) | |
| A reaction: This would seem to define Josephus called a 'theocracy'. Not just rule by a priesthood, but also an attempt to make civil law coincide with the teachings of sacred texts. But doing 80 m.p.h. on a motorway at 2 a.m. hardly seems like a sin. |
| 7339 | Because human life is what is sacred, Mosaic law has no death penalty for property violations [Johnson,P] |
| Full Idea: Where other codes provided the death penalty for offences against property, in Mosaic law no property offence is capital; human life is too sacred, where the rights of property alone are violated. | |
| From: Paul Johnson (The History of the Jews [1987], Pt I) | |
| A reaction: We still preserve this idea in our law, and also in our culture, where we are keen to insist that catastrophes like earthquakes or major fires are measured almost entirely by the loss of life, not the loss of property. I approve. |