Essay
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Privacy, Property, and Third-Party Esteem in Arendt's Constitutionalism
Version 1
: Received: 18 July 2023 / Approved: 19 July 2023 / Online: 26 July 2023 (07:27:56 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
McGroarty, E.; McGroarty, B. Privacy, Property, and Third-Party Esteem in Arendt’s Constitutionalism. Laws 2023, 12, 75. McGroarty, E.; McGroarty, B. Privacy, Property, and Third-Party Esteem in Arendt’s Constitutionalism. Laws 2023, 12, 75.
Abstract
In On Revolution, Hannah Arendt makes the case that a constitution must account for the need of the human person to participate in the building of society, both as a primordial and continual action of founding. This paper draws on Arendt's insight on the relationship between privacy and the notion of property, both of which the constitution must protect, as it is dependent on those notions. Property in its fullest sense is the means by which a person interacts with others and establishes a society. Particularly important for this notion of engagement are the concepts of shame and the love of goodness. The actor emerges from the private sphere to interact with others on the strength of the secrecy and confidentiality of her intimate, private relationships. Property is therefore essential to human flourishing and happiness. Following this, the activity of constructing the public forum on the basis of the private is an important feature of Arendt's constitutionalism. Human action showers third-party esteem on the actor's family and friends, binding them to the constitutional structure and strengthening familial relationships and social cohesion.
Keywords
Arendt; Constitutionalism; Property; Privacy; Esteem; Human Condition; Public Freedom; Human Action; Tocqueville; Totalitarianism; Tyranny.; Shame; Centralization
Subject
Social Sciences, Law
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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