Reciprocity in France [ Political & Moral philosophy ]
… how the concept’s sudden explosion in French texts in the mid-eighteenth century weakened social hierarchies based on rank and privilege by normalising a horizontal understanding of social relations, one in which individuals were conceived … endure through reciprocity; if [this principle] is violated, society ceases to exist.’ 7 Nowhere in this passage does rank or privilege enter into consideration. Individuals are taken to be morally commensurate, and what they owe each … in reflecting on what humans owed one another. His morality of exchange was calibrated to the subtleties of rank: ‘The laws of liberality command that one consider carefully to whom one gives, how much one gives, when and where, …
Antagonism | Commerce | Equality | France | Hierarchy | Morality
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