Freedom, power, and political morality : essays for Felix Oppenheim

This collection of original essays on political and legal theory concentrates on themes dealt with in the work of Felix Oppenheim, including fundamental political and legal concepts and their implications for the scope of morality in politics and international relations. Among the issues addressed are the relationship between empirical and normative definitions of "freedom", "power", and "interests", whether governments are free to act against the national interest, and whether they can ever be morally obliged to do so. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Notes on the Contributors......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 Part I Normative Analysis and Political Concepts......Page 13 1 Felix Oppenheim’s Deontics......Page 15 2 From Hobbes to Oppenheim: Conceptual Reconstruction as Political Engagement......Page 32 3 Essential Contestability and the Claims of Analysis......Page 51 4 Freedom and Bivalence......Page 69 5 Dimensions of Nomic Freedom......Page 81 6 ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Practical Possibility’......Page 91 7 Clarifying the Science Wars: the Concept of Scientific Authority......Page 108 Part II Political Morality and International Relations......Page 131 8 On Public Moral Appeals and Identification......Page 133 9 ‘Anarchical Fallacies’: Bentham’s Attack on Human Rights......Page 146 10 Pre-empting Humanitarian Interventions......Page 165 11 Oppenheim’s Realism and the Morality of the National Interest......Page 183 12 Oppenheim and the National Interest......Page 200 Part III Coda......Page 217 13 Oppenheim in Italy: a Memoir......Page 219 14 Afterthoughts......Page 230 Index......Page 249 This collection of new essays on political and legal theory concentrates on themes dealt with in the work of Felix Oppenheim, including fundamental political and legal concepts and their implications for the scope of morality in politics and international relations. Among the issues addressed are the relationship between empirical and normative definitions of 'freedom', 'power' and 'interests', whether governments are free to act against the national interest, and whether they can ever be morally obliged to do so. The German noun 'Deontik' (Deontics) and adjective 'deontisch' (deontic) were both invented in 1926.