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Dialectics of Self-Realization and the Common Good in the Philosophy of T.H. Green

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Abstract

This paper attempts to systematize possible explanations of the interrelations binding the categories of self-realization and the common good in the philosophy of Thomas Hill Green. Six possible lines of argument are named and analyzed—the salvation argument, the communitarian argument, the reconciliation argument, the non-competitiveness argument, the natural sentiments argument, and the institutional argument. Each one is based on different epistemological or ethical assumptions, which makes some of them impossible to reconcile with others or with the overall character of Green’s moral and social philosophy. After eliminating the arguments most susceptible to justified criticism, the paper proposes a definition of Green’s conception of the relations binding individual with common good.

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Grygieńć, J. (2016). Dialectics of Self-Realization and the Common Good in the Philosophy of T.H. Green. In: Mander, W., Panagakou, S. (eds) British Idealism and the Concept of the Self. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46671-6_6

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