dc.description.abstract
The special kind of freedom of homo sapiens includes both abiding by a –
normative – ethics of Humanity and a contrasting ethics using the – empirical
– ability to dehumanize others. We humans are able to switch rather easily
between both. The grammar of our Western lan-guages indicates that, and
Western political philosophy defines the dignity of man by a similar formula.
Regarding punishment and crime, our psyche works with techniques of
neutralizing brutal acts. Even we “good ones” suppress acting in-humanely
towards others by the method of neutralizing or better by collectivizing
ourselves. We democrats submit blindly to the Rule of Law and the mightiness
of our own Justice. Easily justifying lifelong incarceration without accepting
a bit of personal responsibility for our own decisions is a kind of a
collective ritual of de-individuation sov-ereign democrats should be aware of.
In order to define humanity as well as its negation, inhumanity, the simple
Democratic Trinity of “Freedom, Equity and Solidarity” we should turn to.
Freedom means, for instance, private rights, self-defense, personality, and
egoism/duty to yourself. Equity includes fairness, contracts, and cruel
retaliation/duty to peers. Solidarity com-prises security, taxes, prevention,
humanity, charity, and: inhumane collectivism/duty to society. With a set of
four theses I shall try reducing complexity: I. Jurisprudence and Political
Science: There might be “Three Democ-ratic Steps of Punishment.” A. Democracy
in light of punishment might be defined by freedom, fairness, humanity. B. A
crime in such a democracy means “gaining freedom,” by acting “unfairly,” and
“inhumanely.” C. A democratic punishment implies correcting the wrong by
“taking freedom,” while reacting “fairly” and “humanely.” II. Linguistics and
Culture: The Grammar of Western languages indi-cates we are prepared for both
Democracy in a We-group and for its Negation. Therefore Freedom might be
defined as “status communica-tivus,” too. III. Psychology and Ethics: Milgram
et al. prove that the majority of us cannot avoid “obedience and submission”.
Therefore we have to develop both strong collective ethics and, at least for
leaders, a “Per-sonal Democratic Identity”. VI. Finally, Philosophical
Anthropology: The favored “Rule of Weighing Political Acts Democratically”
means harmonizing in each important individual case “freedom, equity and
solidarity”.
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