Rebolj, Dusan; (2025) A Republican Theory of Courage: Non-Domination and Beyond. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Rebolj__thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 August 2026. Download (3MB)

Abstract

The thesis reinserts the topic of courage into republican political theory. It undertakes three tasks: definitional, descriptive, and normative, corresponding to three parts. The definitional part outlines the four necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of courage: daring, practical wisdom, justice, and temperance. It acknowledges the situationist challenge to virtue ethics by insisting that courage is a property of some people’s occasional acts, and at most a situationally bounded, or ‘local’, virtue. The descriptive part examines how the republican account of democracy can value courage so defined. On the one hand, republicanism can value courage as a feature of politics even in the well-ordered republic. In such a republic, courage can maintain the social norms that republicans value. On the other hand, republicanism cannot grasp the full value of intellectual courage, which preserves autonomy because it overcomes the difficulties of knowledge acquisition and practical deliberation. Intellectual courage helps guard all aspects of choice freedom, including non-domination. Yet, because republicans make autonomy a non-political concern, they cannot directly appreciate courage’s autonomy-sustaining function. Finally, the normative part investigates the limits of permitting courageous agents to expose others to risks, and challenges the claim that courage is supererogatory. Risk imposition is considered permissible insofar as it avoids violating, in this order of priority, the non-domination, non-vitiation, and autonomy of those subjected. Though the uncertainties of political life weaken the defences against these violations, the standard republican account permits compensatory measures in cases where the defences are inadequate. In whistleblowing, the supererogation of courage is mediated by the requirements of offices that whistleblowers occupy. In labour organizing, the benefits of mutual assistance, self-respect, and epistemic improvement speak against it.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item