Theocracy and Autonomy in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy

Bibliographic Data

ID6351785
AuthorsCarlos Fraenkel (McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume38
Issue3
Pages340-366
Publication date2010-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591709359593
OpenAlexW2158248433
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited5

According to both contemporary intuitions and scholarly opinion, autonomy is something specifically modern. It is certainly taken to be incompatible with religions like Islam and Judaism, if these are invested with political power. Both religions are seen as centered on a divine Law ( sharî ‘a, viz., torah) which prescribes what we may and may not do, promising reward for obedience and threatening punishment for disobedience. Not we, but God makes the rules. This picture is in important ways misleading. There is, I argue, a substantive intellectual tradition, going back to Plato’s Laws, which takes the purpose of a theocracy—a community governed by God through the intermediary of a divine Law—to be promoting rational autonomy, conceived as (1) the ability to rationally determine what is in one’s best interest and (2) having the motivation to live accordingly. Among the most important representatives of this intellectual tradition are medieval Muslim and Jewish philosophers

Autonomy · Divine law · Islam · Judaism · Obedience · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Punishment (psychology · Religious Law · Sociology · Sovereignty · Theocracy · Theology · Torah · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Law · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Psychology

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