Por que o nome do um encanta? Não será porque, mesmo ao preço do mais cruel sofrimento, os homens têm nele a ilusão de guardarem sua própria nomeação e, ao mesmo tempo, permanecerem associados? La Boétie parece ensinar, assim, que os homens perdem a liberdade, mas não o desejo de se tornarem livres.

An elegant English version of La Boetie's _Discourse on Voluntary Servitude_, which is both a key to understanding much of Montaigne and a major piece of early modern political thought. --Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley.

Includes bibliography: p. 7-12 and bibliographical references.

O presente artigo analisa a evolução de um novo ideal republicano no contexto das guerras de religião do século XVI francês. Para tal, concentra-se em dois textos: o Discurso sobre a servidão voluntária, de La Boétie, cujo essencial se supõe ter sido redigido por volta de 1548, e os Ensaios, de Montaigne, cuja primeira edição data de 1580. Demonstra, com isso, que Montaigne transfere os ideais republicanos de La Boétie a um contexto novo, passando de um ethos republicano herdado do (...) humanismo renascentista para um ethos que se pode anacronicamente qualificar de “liberal”. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es el análisis crítico del concepto de “servidumbre voluntaria” y sus implicaciones para la libertad que plantea Étienne de la Boétie y su relación con el deseo natural de libertad. En particular se analizan algunas ideas de la obra Discours de la servitude volontaire (1576) comenzando por una introducción general y las implicaciones de la obra en la historia de las ideas políticas. La parte central radica en el problema que plantea para la sociedad el (...) deseo de servir de los hombres o, en otras palabras: el deseo de esclavitud y rechazo de la libertad. Todo ello va contra la naturaleza humana según La Boétie. Estos problemas son los que se discuten a partir de un planteamiento de teoría política que va contra el “pensamiento único” y que destaca algunos de los errores conceptuales del autor desde la óptica de la “realidad política” y la poca relevancia que tienen los estándares de perfección para una organización político-social factible. (shrink)

El profesor Antonio Campillo reflexiona sobre la relación entre moral y política en la época de la creación de los Estados Modernos y de la secularización de lo político: «Pretendo ensayar más bien una lectura inmanente y una mutua confrontación de las tres obras mencionadas: La Utopía, el Príncipe y el Discurso de la servidumbre voluntaria. Porque me parece que entre las tres inauguran y delimitan, desde diferentes ángulos, el horizonte del pensamiento político moderno,. Tomadas así, en su mutua relación, (...) quizá sea más fácil entender el vínculo que las liga a la historia efectiva del siglo XVI; quizá podamos utilizarlas como un espejo, o mejor, como unas lentes a través de las cuales adquiere todo su relieve uno de los acontecimientos más importantes de ese siglo: el nacimiento del Estado Moderno». (shrink)

Este artigo se propõe como entretenimento, sugerindo, a partir da análise do Discurso da Servidão Voluntária, de Etienne de La Boétie, que o lugar do politico é um lugar de interrogação infinita, onde as formas da vida comum são inventadas, destruídas e reinventadas pelo homem. O entretenimento se dá num espaço de liberdade e só é possível entre amigos.

En este trabajo se relacionan los conceptos de servidumbre voluntaria y evaluación, considerando que el punto de encuentro entre ellos es la idea del necesario consentimiento del sujeto. La servidumbre voluntaria, así formulada por Étienne de La Boétie a mediados del siglo XVI, planteaba la primera paradoja: el poder que ejerce el amo no reside en su fuerza, sino en la legitimidad que le otorga el consentimiento del siervo. Durante el siglo XVII, en lo que respecta al pensamiento, fue el (...) Santo Oficio quien ocupó el lugar del amo, y su arma fue la censura, estableciendo ya un procedimiento que había que admitir si se quería publicar. Un siglo más tarde, la idea de emancipación se convirtió en un ideal de la época, actualizando la proposición de La Boétie, ya que la emancipación ilustrada fue una llamada, un imperativo que no consideraba una realidad exterior en tanto que causa, sino que ponía el acento en el consentimiento del sujeto y en su voluntad de no ser libre. Para concluir, en el artículo se aborda la cuestión de la evaluación en tanto que una modalidad actual de la servidumbre voluntaria: la búsqueda metódica, incesante, del consentimiento del otro. (shrink)

En este trabajo se relacionan los conceptos de servidumbre voluntaria y evaluación, considerando que el punto de encuentro entre ellos es la idea del necesario consentimiento del sujeto. La servidumbre voluntaria, así formulada por Étienne de La Boétie a mediados del siglo XVI, planteaba la primera paradoja: el poder que ejerce el amo no reside en su fuerza, sino en la legitimidad que le otorga el consentimiento del siervo. Durante el siglo XVII, en lo que respecta al pensamiento, fue el (...) Santo Oficio quien ocupó el lugar del amo, y su arma fue la censura, estableciendo ya un procedimiento que había que admitir si se quería publicar. Un siglo más tarde, la idea de emancipación se convirtió en un ideal de la época, actualizando la proposición de La Boétie, ya que la emancipación ilustrada fue una llamada, un imperativo que no consideraba una realidad exterior en tanto que causa, sino que ponía el acento en el consentimiento del sujeto y en su voluntad de no ser libre. Para concluir, en el artículo se aborda la cuestión de la evaluación en tanto que una modalidad actual de la servidumbre voluntaria: la búsqueda metódica, incesante, del consentimiento del otro. (shrink)

RESUMO:O objeto de estudo deste artigo é a condição humana. Qual a possibilidade de existência da condição humana fundamentada na liberdade? O objetivo é relacionar esfera pública, política, liberdade e condição humana. A elaboração teórica considerou obras de Etienne de La Boétie, Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis, entre outros. Na atualidade, ocorre a supressão da condição humana, pois a esfera pública tem a ingerência da esfera privada, predominando a razão instrumental e a lógica do mercado, e o homem é (...) afastado da vida política. Por isso, a nossa ação política pela liberdade é fundamental para a problematização do processo de banalização do mal e da servidão voluntária. A coragem é uma virtude indispensável à ação política, é necessária para nos libertarmos da dominação e do servilismo da vida privada e conquistarmos a vida política. A centralidade da ação política do homem é a sua condição de ser atuante para a reafirmação da esfera pública, do mundo da pluralidade, humano e comum. Todavia, a condição humana fundamentada na liberdade implica a superação da atividade e do pensamento pragmáticos e fragmentários da vida cotidiana e a constituição da praxis na dimensão humano-genérica consciente. ABSTRACT:The subject of this article is the human condition. What is the possibility of the existence of the human condition founded on freedom? The aim is to connect the public sphere, politics, freedom, and the human condition. The works of Etienne de La Boétie, Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis, and others, are considered. At the present time there is occurring a suppression of the human condition, because the public sphere exists under the interference of a private sphere in which instrumental reason and market logic prevail. People are divorced from political life. For this reason, political action seeking freedom is essential for addressing the problems of the banalization of evil and voluntary servitude. Courage is an indispensable virtue to political action; it is necessary for liberating us from the domination and servitude of private life, as well as for attaining political life. The centrality of human beings’ political action is the condition for acting to reaffirm the public sphere and the world of plurality, both human and common. However, the human condition founded on freedom supposes the overcoming of the pragmatic and fragmented activity and thinking of daily life, and requires the constitution of praxis in the conscious human-generic dimension. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende analisar e entender os mecanismos envolvidos na servidão voluntária uma vez que essa disposição dos seres humanos em servir de modo gratuito faz com que não só se afastem do estado de natureza, de sua liberdade, mas também tolerem pacientemente os maus zelos tirânicos sendo assim, a partir de que surge tal voluntarismo servil e por que ele acontece de forma fácil? Serão os costumes que encaminham os homens a servir? Ou ainda, a servidão voluntária é (...) resultado de um acaso, o “mau encontro”? Ao mesmo tempo temos os admiradores do tirano, que visando exercerem a opressão ou ainda, visando tomarem o poder do seu senhor, fomentam no cotidiano humano a servidão gratuita. Iremos apresentar cada um destes momentos para que possamos chegar a um entendimento sobre a servidão voluntária nos baseando na obra de Étienne de La Boétie “O Discurso da Servidão Voluntária”. (shrink)

O presente ensaio apresenta como ponto de partida o conto "Cadeira", do escritor português José Saramago, para ilustrar a contínua atualidade do estudo "Amizade, recusa do servir" da professora e filósofa Marilena Chaui, publicado em 1982 pela editora Brasiliense como posfácio da obra "Discurso da servidão voluntária", de Étienne de La Boétie. Nossa intenção é partir da alegoria saramaguiana da queda da ditadura salazarista em Portugal para mostrar como o pensamento de La Boétie, especialmente quando analisado por Chaui, trespassa incólume (...) séculos inteiros chegando até a contemporaneidade europeia e brasileira e que possíveis caminhos alternativos a este sistema podem se apresentar. (shrink)

Loin des traites du gouvernement visant a definir les bornes du pouvoir legitime, le Discours de la servitude volontaire presente la tyrannie comme la negation radicale de toute communaute civile. La ou tout est a un, aucune chose publique ne saurait subsister.Or la racine de cette appropriation tyrannique, c'est, en chacun, l'alienation consentie ou la servitude volontaire. De ce fondement enigmatique et revoltant de toute domination, La Boetie tire une serie de paradoxes qui sont autant d'avertissements constamment adresses a la (...) philosophie politique des Modernes. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

Freedom as a natural right, the importance of consent, defending the idea that government should be in the hands of the most virtuous and reflective citizens, denouncing patronage, the need to link individual and political freedom ? These are some of the characteristics of La Boétie's doctrine that I believe place him within the tradition that Quentin Skinner calls the neo-Roman conception of civil liberty. Of course, La Boétie did not write a positive defence of the rule of law, as (...) Livy did in his History of Rome and as the English republicans do, but the Discourse can easily be read as a legal plea condemning absolute monarchy and any kind of arbitrary regime. (shrink)

The 16th-century French humanist writer Etienne de La Boétie has not often been considered in literature on republican political thought, despite his famous essay, Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, displaying a number of clear republican tropes and themes, being largely concerned with the problem of arbitrary power embodied in the figure of the tyrant. Yet, I argue that the real significance of La Boétie’s text is in his radical concept of voluntary servitude and the way it adds a new dimension (...) to the neo-republican theory of liberty as non-domination. The problem of self-domination or wilful obedience to authority is a form of ideological domination that Pettit’s understanding of arbitrary power relationships between agents does not adequately account for. Furthermore, La Boétie shows that freedom is an ontological condition and is realised not – or not entirely – through the rule of law as the guarantee against arbitrariness, as neo-republicans advocate, but rather through acts of self-emancipation and civil disobedience. Here I understand La Boétie’s thinking in terms of a certain anarcho-republicanism in which the promotion of freedom depends not so much on institutions, as Pettit suggests, but rather on autonomous relations of friendship, love and solidarity between individuals. (shrink)

Le Discours de la servitude volontaire est généralement lu comme un texte dénonçant la structure pyramidale du pouvoir politique en tant que tel. Or nous savons que cet auteur a été un parlementaire très respectueux du droit et plutôt conservateur. Comment concilier ces données apparemment opposées? Une clef possible serait de replacer le Discours dans le contexte d’un débat qui concerne l’émergence du pouvoir absolu à travers la culture curiale mise en place en Italie et en France au tournant du (...) xv e et du xvi e siècle. (shrink)

This article will explore the historical account and political actualisation of Machiavelli and La Boétie in the work of Claude Lefort. In the 1970s, Lefort renewed the interpretation of Machiavelli and La Boétie by underlining their common ‘radical humanism’. The long-overlooked insights into desire and social division of the two Renaissance thinkers underline the subversive potential of humanism against its common ideological and oligarchic uses. But the history of radical humanism cannot be separated from its topicality, as it is one (...) of the germs of the democratic revolution. This radicalism echoes and inspires Lefort's agonistic theory of democracy. After Machiavelli and La Boétie, his work grapples with the continued dependency of the subjects on visible and invisible masters. Indeed, according to Lefort, contemporary societies long for certainty and remain haunted by servitude in the form of ideology (be it bourgeois, totalitarian or invisible). (shrink)

The article takes into account the exceptionality of Étienne de La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude sur la servitude volontaire within its historical context, when compared to other anti-tyrannical essays published in Sixteenth-Century France. The Discourse can be read as a sort of anachronistic criticism of the modern theory of sovereignty, since it connects the birth of a monar-chical power with the presence in every man of a desire to be identified with “the name of the One”. However, this process (...) of hallucinatory identification with a “master”, to whom the individual sacrifices his own singularity, can be fought by the capacity of human language to build a net of co-operation among men, which overthrows any close and static identity between individuals and power. Thus freedom appears to be not a natural and stable possess, but rather an uninterrupted and risky process of collective emancipation. (shrink)

A superb achievement, one that successfully brings together in accessible form the work of two major writers of Renaissance France. This is now the default version of Montaigne in English. --Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley.

This study undertakes a reading of Etienne de La Boétie’s Discours de la servitude volontaire, endeavoring to bring to light the way it convergences with and diverges from the political thought of Paul Ricœur, around the central concept of the will. On the basis of the twin notions of “denaturation” and of “pathology,” a course unfolds which aims at helping establish the people, in comparison with the institution of the State, through a political process revitalised by friendship. But the two (...) thinkers differ when it comes to the resources of the will. This is reflected in the notion of freedom, conceived as absolute in La Boetie, while Ricœur emphasizes its contingency, which leads him to thematize it in terms of capabilities. (shrink)

Étienne de La Boétie (1530–63) is a central, if enigmatic, figure in modern French political philosophy. While his name is most famous for his friendship with Montaigne, his Discours de la servitude volontaire (Discourse of Voluntary Servitude) is a tour-de-force of humanist political writing, a youthful paean to liberty arguing that subjection to tyrants is the result of popular corruption. This article argues that the text can be read as a reflection on the perils and promise of transparency. Reading La (...) Boétie helps us see two radically different ways in which members of a polity can be known to one another – two models of transparency – and it offers an important, but ultimately unsettling, political ideal based on a classical conception of civic friendship. The article draws out the importance of this ideal for modern anti-corruption efforts. (shrink)

The case of nonvoluntary euthanasia shows that the current definition of euthanasia must be more accurately determined. Euthanasia refers necessarily to the ending of life due to serious illness which must be expanded to include the lack of any capacity to give sense to life. A person in this latter position would be under lasting and unbearable suffering, perhaps unconscious, and incapable of leading her own life. The ethics of euthanasia must take these considerations into account. The will does not (...) found the ethical decision. This is based instead on the reasonableness of continuing life under these circumstances. Voluntary euthanasia, as well as nonvoluntary, is founded on the right that every person who suffers under these conditions has to put an end to her life. It is understood that this is the only way to escape from such misfortune when life does not make sense any longer. The topic of euthanasia has a political dimension that is associated with the contemporary practice of medicine and the defense of human rights in our society. At the foundational level, euthanasis is unitary; the distinction between voluntary and nonvoluntary establishes only further precision, not a fundamental one. (shrink)

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the political views of the philosophers of Montaigne circle. The ideas put forward by Charron and La Boétie were important not only for the period of religious wars of the 16th century, but also for various aspects of the genesis of modern philosophy. If autocracy is unacceptable in principle for La Boétie, then Charron is a supporter of a monarchical state structure, although he condemns tyrannical rule. La Boétie justifies his position (...) with references to the need to protect political free­dom. Autocracy, he believes, is inseparable from arbitrariness, illegal and gross violation of the interests of the country’s residents. People can refuse freedom only voluntarily, from force of habit of obeying tyrannical power, once established by deception or violence. He considers it possible to end religious strife by a revival of the Church and a moral re­newal. La Boétie’s political ideal is a republic. Charron, by contrast, considers the king a true sovereign. But rulers often have both shortcomings and vices, sometimes giving rise to tyranny, expressed in disregard for the laws and traditions of the country. Charron, like La Boétie, sees the reason for the religious wars in the damage of morals. He also sees a compromise as the best solution; to withdraw compatriots from the state of civil con­frontation is possible peacefully. For Charron, as for La Boétie, social inequality, class hi­erarchy seems to be an invariable condition of social existence. For both, violence is an unacceptable form of implementing social improvements. Both see religion as an im­portant pillar of social life. In the coordinate system of the two thinkers of the Montaigne circle, religious considerations are not taken beyond the general contours of their political reflections. It is noteworthy that for the philosophical landscape of the late Renaissance, the problem of religious confrontation turns out to be closely associated with the question of the best form of social structure. Discussions about it continue in our time. (shrink)

One of the key concepts in XVIII century political thought was despotism. Also Diderot utilised this complex idea. According to him, who followed Hobbes and Montesquieu, despotism was the result of the love of power, which was able to bring forth the passion of fear in the society. In this sense, Machiavelli belonged to this line of reflection: like that of Hobbes, his system was intended to show the danger of despotism and to learn the true foundation of natural law. (...) But rethinking this paradox Diderot was led to elaborate a new theory of despotism, no longer based on the mechanism of power. His interpretation of Machiavelli – and Hobbes – had opened up a new perspective, which did not move from the enigma of power – Machiavelli's and Hobbes’ chief concern – but from the nature of subjection. Along this path Diderot came across de la Boëtie's Discours de la servitude volontaire, which explained the origin of despotism in a different way. Despotism was not the result of the passion of fear, but of that of interest. The discussion of these two different ideas of despotism led Diderot to a new perspective from which he answered the problem of liberty in an original way. (shrink)

The attempt to recuperate the efficacy of utopia from critics of its blueprint variants has seen the emergence of critical utopias.1 According to critics, the problem with "traditional" blueprint models lay in their production of "a closed, static, authoritarian society that negates temporality and does violence to plurality and individual singularity."2 Critical utopias sought to internalize such critiques in order to rescue utopia, resulting in a heightened attention to the problems of the dialectic of emancipation, plurality, and temporality. Consequently, critical (...) utopias contain a self-reflexive approach that aims to foreclose any authoritarian regression via an internalization of the preliminary and... (shrink)

I investigate the contemporary problem of obedience through an exploration of Michel Foucault and Étienne de La Boétie, showing how the former drew on the latter’s concept of voluntary servitude as a way of thinking through the paradoxical relationship between power, freedom and subjectivity. My argument is that Foucault’s theory of government as the ‘conduct of conduct’ may be understood as a reflection on the question of voluntary servitude. My aim here is twofold. First, it is to show that obedience (...) is an ethical and political problem just as relevant today as it was in La Boétie’s time. Secondly, it is to suggest that voluntary servitude should be interpreted in an emancipatory way, as a problematic that reveals the ontological primacy of freedom and the fragility and instability of power. ‘Voluntary inservitude’ is something that can be expressed in acts of civil disobedience, and alternate modes of ethical conduct and association. (shrink)

Objectivo do presente artigo é mostrar de que modo John Locke, sobretudo nas obras An Essay concerning Human Understanding e Two Treatises of Government, se revela um dos principais pensadores do liberalismo, especialmente no que se refere às raízes antropológicas do mesmo. Com efeito, partindo do nominalismo, o qual Ihe permite fazer a distinção entre essências reais e essências nominais, Locke faz do seu Ensaio urna grandiosa tentativa de descrever a natureza humana, processo esse em que sobressai não só o (...) significado de urna existência persistentemente mantida nos mais distintos tempos e lugares, mas também, ou sobretudo, a ideia de que o elemento mais profundo da identidade humana se encontra precisamente na liberdade. Além disso, o artigo mostra também de que modo Locke reconhece na razão a faculdade que permite ao ser humano aceder ao conjunto das leis naturais, bem assim aos correspondentes direitos, entre os quais se destaca o direito à propriedade privada, direitos e deveres esses que compete, antes de mais, à sociedade civil, ou seja, à política, servir e preservar. Nesse sentido, o artigo evidencia também de que modo, sobretudo de acordo com os Treatises, e dado que os seres humanos, por si sós, se revelam incapazes de garantir a vigência das leis da natureza que à sua convivência se aplicam, e para melhor as poder salvaguardar, os indivíduos, de forma voluntária, se constituem em Estado. Mostra-se ainda de que modo, para Locke, a sociedade deve ser governada de acordo com a lei da maioria, e o que por esta se entende. Finalmente, o artigo chama ainda a nossa atenção para o facto de, segundo John Locke, a expressão máxima da vontade da sociedade política se encontrar no poder legislativo, poder esse que, dotado como está da missão de salvaguardar a propriedade privada, tem sobretudo a responsabilidade de eleger o poder executivo, nele delegando a tarefa executar, ou fazer cumprir, as leis que dele próprio possam emanar. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how John Locke, chiefly in his works An Essay concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, reveals himself one of the major thinkers of liberalism, especially concerning its anthropological roots. In fact, starting from nominalism, which allows himself to distinguish between real essences and nominal essences, Locke makes in his Essay a grand attempt at descnbing human nature, a process in which stands out not only the meaning of an existence persistently maintained in the most distinguished times and places, but also, and chiefly, the idea that the most profound element of human identity resides in its freedom. The article also demonstrates how Locke recognizes reason as the capacity which permits human being to accede to the set of natural laws, and to the corresponding rights, among which the right to private property stands out; and it belongs, before anything else, to the civil society, that is, to politics, to serve and preserve those rights and duties. In this way, and considering that human beings, by themselves, are incapable of guaranteeing the validity of natural laws which are applied to living in society, the article, mainly following the Two Treatises, also makes evident how individuals voluntaríly constitute the State, precisely in order to safeguard those laws. Moreover, the author also demonstrates how, according to Locke, society should be governed by the law of majority and how this law is properly understood. Finally, the article also calls our attention to the fact that, according to Locke, the utmost expression of the will of political society is to be found in the legislative power, the one that, endowed as it is with the mission of protecting prívate property, has the major responsibility of electing the executive power and delegating in it the task of executing the laws eventually issued by itself. (shrink)

The death of Montaigne is described in some important documents such as the correspondence between Pierre de Brach, Justus Lipsius and Marie de Gournay, as well as in another letter written by Pasquier. What these «lettres du deuil» do is to reconstruct the philosophical meaning of death, using an entire universe of symbols to represent it. Previously, Montaigne had himself been the only person to witness La Boétie's death, of which he had deconstructed the abstract, merely speculative image in order (...) to emphasize its human dimension. (shrink)

El objetivo de este escrito es presentar, a partir de la doctrina del término medio expuesta por Aristóteles en su Ética Nicomáquea, una réplica al artículo de Fabio Morales. Así, se revisará la idea de Morales, según la cual parece haber un círculo vicioso en la explicación de las acciones voluntarias, con lo cual la libertad de dichas acciones quedaría comprometida. A esto se contrapondrá la exposición de la doctrina mencionada, así como el papel que la deliberación y la elección (...) juegan en ella; a partir de lo cual se concluye que, a pesar de que es posible compartir ciertas ideas de Morales, el círculo que él postula en realidad no es tal y, aunque sea posible decir que Aristóteles no se ocupó a profundidad del tema de la libertad, ésta parece estar salvaguardada en su teoría. (shrink)