Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 43 No. 2, 2023.
Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.21464/fi43207
On COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Concept of “Exception” from Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology
Mirko Vlk
orcid.org/0000-0003-4659-4652
; Schmilinskystrasse 14, DE-20099 Hamburg
Abstract
In many ways, questionable epidemiological measures by which the authorities restricted civic and private life during the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged many implied notions of the inviolability of citizens’ rights and freedoms, as well as obedience to state authority. It is a problem of the incommensurability between freedom and law seen through the conflict between personal rights and the demands of the common good. This article examines how a state of emergency, such as a pandemic, affects the perception of the legitimacy of the State. In this, it relies on some key concepts from Carl Schmitt’s political theology, such as the “exception”, “the sociology of legal concepts”, the “nature of sovereignty”, the formal criterion of the political as a specific way of thinking, and acting and “stasiological” nature of the political.
Keywords
epidemic; freedom; civil disobedience; sovereignty; political theology; Carl Schmitt
Hrčak ID:
309843
URI
Publication date:
20.8.2023.
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