Re: self-rule

[Robert Justin Lipkin]

       To say that "self-rule" potentially serves as a concept unifying individual self-rule and collective self-rule does not in any way imply that there are no differences in how these concepts work. As a unifying concept "self-rule" suggests important similarities not identities.

       Different linguistic intuitions are surely at work here. "[T]he absence of internal domination" tells me very little. While not pellucid to be sure, "self-rule" indicates a subject (an individual person or group of people) who decide things for themselves. I agree that far from ending the investigation about democracy or republicanism, the use of self-rule only begins it.  But it begins it, I submit, by using a paradigm of individual self-rule which is relatively clear and then proceeds to develop a similar conception of collective self-rule.  This is a rather straightforward method of theory construction. That problems arise in developing this second related concept should be welcomed.  Attempting to answer these problems elucidates the paradigm even further. I'm afraid I would not welcome the task of unpacking "the absence of internal domination." This locution raises a host of questions that are probably more usefully addressed later in the development of a political philosophy. But, as I said, linguistic intuitions differ.

Bobby Lipkin
Widener University School of Law
Delaware