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About the ideological dimensions of fear
74-111Views:80The main goal of of my research is to explore the right and left dimensions of the phenomenon of fear. I would like to argue that the categories of left and right continue to be defining aspects of political identities, and by mapping their emotional structure we can better understand the current relevance of these ideologies. The studies that have examined political fears have mostly linked fear to conservativism and right wing-populism, while the fears of the left have generated far less scientific interest. A study also wants to respond to this research gap. In this paper, I would like to present the potential connection points between fear and ideological identity. The structure of the study is as follows: first, I outline the relationship between ideology and moral emotions, and then I analyze fear as a moral emotion. After that I present how fear is connected to conservatism and right-wing populism, and then I try to illustrate the ideological differences with two types of politically relevant fear, i.e. climate anxiety and migration-related fear. Finally, I add context to these specific political fears that is I also interpret them in the Hungarian political system. The study ends with drawing conclusions and outlining future research directions.
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Legitimacy and tax morale in fiscal contract: The role of collective services and government communication in shaping taxpayers’ moral considerations
140-156Views:63The purpose of this paper, building on the so-called fiscal contract theory, published by Margaret Levi (1988, 1998) and Jeffrey F. Timmons (2005), is to investigate the nature of the relationship between the so-called tax morale and government legitimacy. More specifically, it discusses the important theories and empirical researches to highlight on the significance of the role of the government in influencing citizens’ moral considerations during taxpaying. According to the fiscal contract theory, there is an unspoken agreement between taxpayers and the government to oblige the government to maintain services reflecting on collective needs and to oblige citizens to comply with the law, i.e. to pay their taxes. Thus, taxpaying is voluntary, but conditional. This paper relies on this theory when it argues that fiscal contract is rooted in citizens’ responsibility for their community, inducing their tax morale. In other words, this bilateral agreement suggests, that tax morale, what is rooted in citizens’ responsibility, is a significant factor of taxpaying motivations.
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The moral restoration of business relations: Management from a Christian point of view
71-90Views:36Globalisation is a complex and worldwide process overarching historical times and continents.
It started with the great geographical discoveries, continued with the emergence of world trade
and the development of a truly global market reaching its present status. Globalisation has both
negative and positive effects. Out of the positive effects it has to be emphasised that more and
more zones of our planet benefit from the advances in sciences and techniques, more and more people have better access to work, education and the necessary commodities to meet their basic
needs. Globalisation has brought efficiency and new opportunities to companies, providing practically free access to raw materials, labour and knowledge. Out of the negative effects degradation of the biosphere, the greater social and economic inequality especially in the developing
countries has to be pointed out. Some companies are operating worldwide and have acquired
great economic power and influence. Governments have only limited possibilities to regulate
their operation. The expenses of profit maximisation are high, which are often ‘paid’ by the social-natural environment (as externalities). The aim of our study is to overview how current
business relations could be formed to be more human and environment friendly from the point
of view of Christian philosophy. It has to be pointed out that our study is focusing on the Christian
point of view, although in our globalised world when studying business relations we should not
forget about the role of other world major religious groups. -
Neo-Hobbesian democracy: The theory of modus vivendi and democratic legitimacy
25-41Views:44In political theory, the criticism of Rawlsian constructivist liberalism has been articulated in
theories of political realism. John Gray, one of the promoters of realist liberalism, recommends
a neo-Hobbesian way of social coexistence which is based on the conflictual and antagonistic
idea of political life. It takes social values and forms of life as incommensurable in modern
multicultural societies. Taking value-pluralism and its conflicts seriously, a theory of modus
vivendi has been articulated among realist political thinkers. Being a post-liberal (or post-Enlightenment) theory, modus vivendi is more a practice oriented and open-ended theory than
philosophical constructions based on high morality. Modus vivendi theorists make an emphasis
on the peaceful co-existence of social groups and a moral minimum of the political society. One of
the deficiency of the theory is that it says not much about democracy, though it would be highly
useful according to two contextual considerations.On the one hand, a modern political system
would be impossible or outrageous without any form of democratic legitimacy. On the other
hand, there is an exhaustion of the liberal project(s) and the societies featured by multicultural
prosperity. Besides constitutional protection, defending democracy in this new context means
balancing between cultural and other value-oriented groups in modern societies. In my paper,
I make an attempt to examine the concept of democracy in the light of modus vivendi theory. -
Entangled in the web of solidarity paradoxes – from the moral contradictions of helping to the dysfunctions the welfare system
51-85Views:74The article aims at analysing the idealtypical paradoxes of solidarity in a Hungarian rural
community. The case study focuses on helping processes embedded in various integration
mechanisms (including conservatory, reflexive and cybernetical ones – Sik 2015), while
reconstructing the perspectives of the helping and the supported actors. During the field work
interviews (n=22), small surveys (n=95) and observations (1 week) were collected, which were
interpreted in several turns. The results of the research reveal the idealtypical paradoxes of
solidarity in various social spaces, and also the consequences of their accumulation. According to
our conclusion, it is particularly important to reflect upon these latter, mostly latent paradoxes,
as their treatment is indispensable for any spontaneous or expert social interventions. -
Thomas Hobbes and the dilemmas of the natural state: First chapter – The axiomatic nature of total war
3-24Views:96The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, one of the founders
of modern political philosophy, best known for his masterpiece, Leviathan. The aim of this essay
is not to provide a full scale analysis of Hobbes’ main work, nor to present his moral or political
philosophy, nor to reflect on the significance of his impact on later political thinkers. The aim is
more modest, and the theme under scrutiny is more narrow: the paper is devoted to a critical
analysis of the main premise (state of the nature) of Hobbes’ theory of power, including the
ambivalent character of the state of nature, as well as the logical dilemmas that arise during
the analysis.After a general presentation of Hobbes’s philosophy and of the logical construction of his
work, I will tend to focus on two aspects of the state of nature: firstly, I will analyse the assumed
analogy between the state of nature and the Book of Genesis; secondly, I will examine whether
the „war of all against all” is an axiomatic outcome of the „primitive” state. It turns out, that the
answers for these questions are not so unanbiguous.
