Moderniosios vieningos Europos idėjos ištakos

LTStraipsnyje nagrinėjamos teorinės moderniosios Europos idėjos susiformavimo ir įsitvirtinimo XVII‒XVIII a. politiniame mąstyme prielaidos. Keliama hipotezė, jog Samuelio Pufendorfo ir Gotfriedo Leibnizo idėjos buvo esminės moderniosios Europos vienybės projektų ir jos padalinto suverenumo idėjos susiformavimui moderniajame politiniame mąstyme. Tikrinant hipotezę, apžvelgiama ir analizuojama abiejų autorių įtaka moderniosios Europos vienybės projekto prielaidoms. Remiamasi idėjų istorijos ir lyginamuoju istoriniu metodais. Raktažodžiai: Europa, suverenumas, modernybė, prigimtinė teisė. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe article is focused on the sources of the idea of a united Europe, which are also relevant to Lithuania, both theoretically and practically. Practically, Lithuanian society supports the idea of a united Europe enthusiastically and is deeply interested in its success and stability. Theoretically, Lithuanian culture developed and flourished in the context of European civilization, first Christian and later modern. In recent studies, it is usual to emphasise “Europeanisation” of Lithuania and the parallels between the multiethnic medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania and contemporary Europe, united in diversity and openness. The fact that our “Europeanisation” unfolded at the same time as Christendom was discovering its new modern European identity is left on the margins. Europe as a political concept and an identity did not exist in the premodern world; only during the formative years of modernity did it replace the identity of Western Christendom, in which the Catholic doctrine of the human’s universal semblance to Christ and the supreme rule of the pope were considered the unifying basis. The change was primarily caused by confessional diversity established by the Reformation and the decline of the divine legitimacy. As the classic conception of natural law was being dismissed, the sovereign was freed from it, and in this way the sovereign became truly absolute. Fragmentation into states in which the sovereign had the right to govern everything, including religion, disrupted the preceding perspective of a continental unity. As the new perspective of an absolute sovereignty became more apparent, the search for a new unity of both the continent and humanity as a whole intensified as well. Many projects for a united Europe were proposed, yet it is not their analysis that matters in search for the bases of European unity, but determining the prerequisites of political thought that enabled the division of sovereignty.Instead of providing the goals of a good life, modern natural law tried to set the rules for peaceful and stable cohabitation of individuals. Pufendorf based these rules on the individual’s love for oneself and their sociability (the ability to socialise). He also based human equality on (1) the existential threat and mutual respect, which arise from each person’s fundamental ability to kill one another, and (2) people’s subjective sense of self-worth and their wish for that sense to be acknowledged as rightful. Equal people are naturally in need of a sovereign, but they limit his powers themselves and have the right to oppose him when his decrees contradict natural law. Sovereignty may be limited, not only absolute. Furthermore, state systems in which sovereignty is divided (confederation and the yet-unnamed federation) are possible as well. Sovereignty is thus “divisible”, but only in the sense of the form of the state, not in international law. Leibniz, the most prominent adherent of rationalism, held that reality as such is qualitatively singular; he considered diversity of humanity a superficial phenomenon incapable of determining the variety of political regimes and norms (as postulated by the classical thought and modern empiricists). For Leibniz, the world is composed of indivisible monads, which combine into formations and imagine both themselves and the world with various degrees of intensity, while God has these images pre-harmonised into a unified whole. Since monads differ in their degree of consciousness, and thus in their semblance to God (the most conscious of monads), Leibniz dismisses the assumption of the equality of individuals and the theory of social contract. Political rule must belong to the wisest, and all of humanity must adhere to identical norms that correspond with the objective dominant order of things.The sovereign must obey natural law, and sovereignty can be divisible; rulers must acknowledge the superiority of the pope or the emperor. A sovereign may serve beneath higher sovereigns. Sovereignty requires only the ability to control and, if need be, defend the territory that is ruled. This notion was a favourable basis of the projects for uniting humanity and, later, Europe. According to Leibniz, any such unification required an authority placed above the sovereigns. Rationalism established the standpoint that the diversity of nations and religions may be transcended for the sake of the uniformity of the human race. The notion that differences are the cause of conflicts became the basic assumption for peace and unification projects and for cosmopolitism in general. Projects for the unification of Europe came to be based on overcoming collective differences. Keywords: Europe, sovereignty, modernity, natural law. [From the publication]