Almost everyone expects the state not to favour any conception of the good life. The agreement ends as soon as one has to say what neutrality requires in practice.
Published on M. Delaunay2 min
The review
Understanding convictions, your own included
Liberty, equality, authority, solidarity: what these words cover.
Should an elected representative do what those who elected them want, or what they judge to be right for them? Both answers have had staunch defenders for more than two centuries.
Published on S. Nguyen2 min
Everyone claims liberty, which should put us on alert. Behind the same word stand three rival definitions, which do not recommend the same rules and do not identify the same threats.
Published on E. Rossi4 min
Two people attached to equality may defend opposite policies. Most often because they are not talking about the same equality, and are not aiming at the same place.
Published on S. Nguyen3 min
The relation to authority is the dimension most badly summarised by everyday vocabulary. Being attached to order and distrusting power is in no way contradictory.
Published on revised on C. Broussard3 min
Helping someone may belong to the voluntary gesture, to mutual insurance or to imposed duty. Three logics covered by the same word, and which do not produce the same institutions.
Published on revised on A. Vasseur3 min
That contributions should be recognised is the object of broad agreement. What counts as a contribution, and what recognition authorises, is the object of none.
Published on revised on T. Marchand3 min
Posing the question as a choice between two camps prevents it from being dealt with. Almost nobody wants to give up either, and everybody is constantly making trade-offs.
Published on revised on L. Fabre3 min
The question is not whether you love your country. It is at what level a decision should be taken, and what makes that level legitimate.
Published on revised on M. Delaunay3 min
Agreement on the objective says nothing about the instrument. Yet it is on the instrument that almost all disagreements are played out, and each instrument has its serious supporters.
Published on revised on E. Rossi3 min
Conserving and reforming are presented as opposite attitudes, one prudent and the other bold. In reality, each invokes prudence, against a different risk.
Published on revised on S. Nguyen3 min
Nobody defends a tolerance without limit, and nobody defends its absence. The whole debate bears on where the limit lies and on the authority that sets it.
Published on revised on C. Broussard3 min
Owning is not a simple fact, but a set of distinct rights, which the law distributes differently according to the goods. That is where most disagreements lodge.
Published on revised on S. Nguyen2 min