Paul W. Kahn

On his book Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty

Cover Interview of April 24, 2011

Editor’s note

Originally, this interview ran on the Rorotoko cover page under the headline

“Political theory must turn from reason to will, from abstract norms to the free decision.”

We highlighted two quotes.

On the first page:

“A modern political theology is not about the relation of the church to the state, but rather about the nature of our secular faith in the popular sovereign.”

On the second:

“An exception is an act taken with respect to a norm but not determined by the norm. The exception is neither arbitrary nor determined. It is precisely the act of a free subject.”

sovereignty / philosophy / religion / law / power / state / democracy / constitution / international law / international criminal court /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009