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Epilogue on Justice, Politics, and the Meaning of Life

Confronting Carl Schmitt

from Part III - The Grounds of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

Mathias Risse
Affiliation:
Harvard University Kennedy School of Government
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Summary

Schmitt maintains an uneasy presence because of his involvement with National Socialism. Nonetheless, his views on domestic and international politics are the kind of view against which liberal thought must be defended. Accordingly, confronting Schmitt is a suitable way of ending this book. This epilogue explains some of Schmitt’s views. Schmitt offers a caricature of the political. Nonetheless, his approach proves insightful in certain pockets of that larger domain of the political (which explains to some extent Schmitt’s enduring presence). Accordingly, political liberals too must see themselves as Schmittian friends of sorts. We also investigate the substantial downgrading of justice entailed by Schmitt’s approach, as compared with meaning or love. On the account offered here, the meaning of life and justice are linked. The frame-of-human-life conception has resources to account for all these notions. Finally, we explore Schmitt’s international thought and offer the grounds-of-justice approach as an alternative.

Type
Chapter
Information
On Justice
Philosophy, History, Foundations
, pp. 357 - 372
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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