A moral doctrine on war, which establishes the moral conditions of making war, is something quite different from a moral doctrine on the international use of force, which condemns war as an inmoral action in itself. If our options are for the latter, we should be provided with a more efficient and equitable way to solve international conflicts than war, because the moral condemnation of war undermines the grounds on which the moral and legal doctrine on war has been traditionally (...) based. (shrink)

A critique of the modern concept of the autonomy of the social sphere with respect to the political, as well as the strict separation between society and the state is elaborated. On the basis of Millán-Puelles' work, the subsidiarity of the public and the socialness of the private is seen as the only escape from the conflict between collectivism and individualism and its feed-back mechanism.

The distinction between liberalism and republicanism lies basically on the way politics is conceived: as something instrumental or as something constitutive of the practical condition of the human being. This constitutive conception of politics is the very essence of republicanism. All other features of republicanism stem from this, receiving from it their specific republican meaning.