call a. a political system in which the ruler should not give any account of what it does and must not shirk any laws. Absolute power has no limits and, usually, is centralized in the hands of one person. "No one can be sovereign in a state where not a single one, if there are two or three or more persons exercising the sovereignty, no one really is sovereign" (Bodin 1997: 478). The concept of undivided power in the hands of one person is supported by the aforementioned thinkers like Bodin, Hobbes and the French bishop Bossuet, who, though with different nuances, come to the same conclusion: all human individuals, have never had (or have renounced, or been deprived) its own sovereign power, all but one of the monarch, who, as a god, has the right to command, without being challenged.
the king and the sovereign power belongs to him alone has the right to enact laws. Now, by Ulpian in Bodin, it was considered inconceivable that those who make the laws must also abide by them. The prince, in short, is not required to comply with the laws. It is like saying that those who do not have to obey the highway code, those who draw up rules of etiquette to be exempted from having to observe, who sets the moral values \u200b\u200bcan regularly transgress.
2.1. The Balance Sheet
Dal'antichità the modern age, is widespread conception that the prince recognizes the right to manage the state as if it were his private property and "that made Louis XIV" the state is me. " The only duty of a king is to preserve, protect and improve its properties, and to do this, he has the option of using subjects over which it is simply required to act according to their conscience. Only if the king did not prove capable of protecting the State may be dropped and a deposed in favor of another man (Buss 2002: 163-78).
2.2. The dynamics of power in the state ever since the beginning
of history and into the nineteenth century have clearly prevailed autocratic governments (or Tribunal or absolute), which deal with subjects the same way as children. Just as children, because of their immaturity, are not independent nor appropriate to assume or to exercise moral discernment and, therefore, need father figures and tutelary, so the subjects they need someone to take care of them and governments. This is usually a monarch, who is variously called (King, Pharaoh, Caesar, emperor, prince, tsar, high priest) and believed with extraordinary qualities and different from each other, because the role called for by a god or because is himself a god and made the object of worship. The sovereign is everything and everything belongs, including citizens, they become servants and subjects. Autocratic governments in the only interest that really matters is what the State or, which is the same thing, the king himself. The interests of individuals are subordinated or not counted at all. The company is an autocratic and monolithic and coincides with the figure of the sovereign. Everyone will remember the famous words of Louis XIV: "The state is me." In
governments monocratic the reason of state coincides with the supreme interests of the sovereign, and when the looming threat of an advancing enemy, in reality, that danger is not felt by all alike. Only the monarch, in fact, has an interest in fighting to defend its power and, behind him, all the noble families and rich landowners. After a war between states, the winner usually eliminates the direct rival and settles in its place, he takes for himself what was the first one, confiscate the assets of the wealthy, which it distributes to members of his following, and does not show any interest to kill the peasants who worked the land at subsistence level and paid the old owner of any excess, rather than the arms come in handy, because now works for the new owner.
After a war that is won or lost, for families living at subsistence level things do not change. And that is why farmers usually they are unaware of the state, have no motivation to take up arms: they do only because they are forced by their leaders. By a transition at the top that can change everything for the farmer is to change master. Is rather high the stakes to the ruler and gentry families. In case of defeat, in fact, they risk losing social status, possessions, freedom and life.
2.3. Proponents The
to. had many admirers, from ancient times and up to modern times. I remember a few. For Jean Bodin
, the monarchy is the system that there is more natural and, in fact, the family has only one end, the sky has a sun, the sky did not need a God that those who are sovereign - the French philosopher notes - not in any way subject to the commands of others and may make laws for his subjects and to repeal or annul laws unnecessary to make more. For this reason, the law says that the prince is dissolved (absolutus) the authority of the laws. By definition, "the sovereign is only he who does not depend on anything other, in anything from the Pope, the Emperor nothing, that is entirely up to himself, which is not bound by any tie of subjection staff, whose power is not nor temporary, nor delegate or responsible to any other power on earth "(Chevallier 1968: 63). The sovereign is only required to submit to the laws of nature, which are a reflection of divine reason. "The sovereign prince does not recognize anything higher than itself but God" (Bodin 1988: 176). According to Bodin, "the highest point of the sovereign majesty is to give law to his subjects in general and in particular, without their consent" (1964: 374). "Because the earth there is nothing greater than the sovereign princes, who are only after God, who has established them as his lieutenants, to control other men, must have the highest consideration for their dignity, respect and revere their majesty in full obedience, experience feelings of great respect for them, talk about them with great respect. He who despises his sovereign prince rejects God, to whom it is the image of the earth "(Bodin 1964: 477). Bodin concluded that "the pure absolute monarchy is preferable to other forms of state, and without comparison the best of all" (1997: 483). Not only that we must choose between the hereditary monarchies. "Just as the legitimate monarchy is preferable to other forms of state, including the monarchies that which comes by right of succession to male descendants who bear the closest name, and is not subject to division, it is far more laudable and safer than not the other " (Bodin 1997: 494). In many passages the thought of Bodin reflects that of Aristotle, with the consequence of seeming traditionalist to the bitter end. This applies, for example, male for his position. "All nations are agreed that the nobility, splendor, dignity comes from her husband and his wife" (1997: 551). This principle applies also to the hereditary monarchy and, if the male line should become extinct, it would be better to set up a new dynasty with the method of choice rather than entrust the kingdom to a woman (1997: 543).
Unlike Aristotle, who saw in man a sociable animal, of course, for Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of perpetual war between sovereign individuals, to leave the men who lay between them a contract, under which they take up their personal sovereignty to a "third party" which, in turn, is totally foreign to the contract and is not bound by any obligation. With this release, which is final and irrevocable, the men voluntarily stripped of their autonomy of moral judgments and undertake to "keep for good and just what the sovereign order, unjust and bad for what he forbids" (Chevallier 1968: 84). For Hobbes, would be a major disaster that men claim to judge their conscience rather than according to law. "Rise up to judges of good and evil, the men return to the state of nature, and its frightful anarchy "(Chevallier 1968: 89). The design recalls the Hobbesian conception of original sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise: The only difference lies in the fact that our ancestors are punished by a higher authority, while, through the conclusion of the contract, the men to punish oneself.
Despite their different arguments, Bossuet lands to the same conclusions of the English philosopher. Starting from a position of such Aristotelian (God created human beings naturally sociable), the French bishop marries the idea of \u200b\u200bHobbes (men are struggling sovereign against each other), specifying, however, that this is the consequence of original sin. Hence the need for a government. For Bossuet, the government better and more natural is the absolute monarchy. The king acts in place of God and must be respected as God on earth. He is obliged to do public good, and what will be accountable to God's people, for its part, is called to obedience. "One exception to the complete obedience due to the prince when he commands against God" (Chevallier 1968: 109).
2.4 The critical
Among the critics of absolutism a place I find to be attributed certainly Locke. "E that! The subjects should bear it patiently, on the pretext that rulers derive their authority directly from God and that God alone has the right to ask their regard to their conduct "(Chevallier 1968: 121). This doctrine of divine right is considered by the English philosopher a real poison of politics to which we must urgently find an antidote. Unlike Hobbes, Locke believes that the state of nature, though sovereign, individual men are not so bad, even if they see their freedom and their property secured by the bad state of nature. If you prefer the state of society is to feel better and be better protected in their rights. Giving themselves a government, However, men do not renounce their original state and preserve its sovereignty. Political power is based, then, the consensus (here's the antidote).
Another prominent critic of absolutism is Montesquieu, which places itself above the laws of every society and the spirit from which they emanate. The legislature is, in theory, the entire population, although in practice it can not perform this function and must delegate to the nobility or a body of representatives, while the King has the executive power, namely the application of those laws. Even Rousseau
expressed passionate words of criticism against absolutism, but it did so in a way that has generated quite a few doubts, if not actual controcritiche (see POPPER 1981). For Rousseau, freedom is to bend to the General Will . This term does not a democratic concept. Does not, in fact, the will of all or a majority, but the general interest, in opposition to the special interests of individuals. Sovereign is the people, as the carrier of the general will. Comply with the laws that emanate from the general will, means to be free. What emerges from the writings of Rousseau is an apparent democracy. There is talk of freedom, law and, more importantly, will General . In fact, these expressions do not recognize the legislative power to the people, nor the freedom to decide for themselves. The people of Rousseau remains subject to the general will, which is not, as you might think, the will of all citizens or, simply, the majority of them. It is only an abstract concept, the product of pure reason. The people being crushed under the weight of this impersonal will, of this Act made by anyone. Rousseau's intent was to free mankind from the yoke of laws made by other men. But in doing so, he had, in fact, sacrificed, the democratic spirit. A Rousseau do not care if the people approve or reject a law, he is considering only whether the law conforms to the general will or not. In a sense, Rousseau makes a non-absolutist system less rigid than that borne by Bodin, Hobbes and Bossuet, even if otherwise well founded.
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