Political Friendship and the Good Life

The main subject of this book is the rather fascinating link between an acceptable concept of political whole and its legal and moral implications. When we face this problem, we find that widespread categories like `happiness' and "friendship" are at the same time necessary and dangerous, crucial and elusive. In order to make the case against the so-called Legal Enforcement of Morals, and to grasp the complex relationship between law and morality from a liberal point of view, it is not enough to reject a pattern of happiness, or of human flourishing, from which to draw normative instructions for men and women - it must be recognized that integration of individuals in the comprehensive groups, as well as in the political whole itself, is not the only valuable option. The fragile value of a relative lack of integration, a "right to unhappiness", turns out to be, eventually, what makes the weak, but decisive, moral primacy of liberal societies.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
Preface.- Two Meanings of Unhappiness.- The Canon: Groundwork.- The Canon: Development.- The First Argument on Unhappiness.- The Right to Unhappiness. Unhappiness, Law and Morality.- Friendship: Reconstruction (I).- Friendship: Reconstruction (II).- The Second Argument on Unhappiness.- Conclusions.- References.- Index.