La The indignation in Leviathan

A Movement about the Juridical Limits of Possibility

Abstract

More than 300 years after the first edition of Leviathan, the passions described there ought to be read in consideration of historical, political and discursive changes. Even so, it is still possible to make a conceptual tracing of some of the passions discussed here, especially those that currently participate with effervescence in public life. What senses can we rescue from them more than 300 years after their publication? As the present essay consists in a treatise of political philosophy about the origins and developments of the social pact, it is possible to understand these passions, in principle, from the viewpoint of their contractual values. Each of them represents a value in the relationship with others, ways of being in the world of subjects themselves in contract. We specifically think here about indignation (outrage), about its political and juridical potential to contour the contract boundaries, but also about its hermeneutic potential, enabling other ways of reading through the question of injustices, the legitimate mechanisms of return demanded in the face of them and the use of rationalized violence.