Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics (2025) XXVII/2

Galut (exile) and redemption (utopia) in Gershom Scholems conception of the Lurian Cabbalà are not manifestations specific to Israel, but pertain rather to all being, and they also include the mystery of divinity. The Messiah becomes the entire people of Israel and is no longer an indi-vidual redeemer: the entire people corrects the original sin. The redemption of Israel as a secu-lar, national fact remains, but expands and becomes the symbol of the redemption of the entire world, the “return of the universe to the state that should have come about when the Creator conceived Creation” (G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Kabbalism , in Id., The Messianic Idea in Judaism and other Essais on Jewish Spirituality, Schocken, New York, with a new Fo-reword by Arthur Hertzberg, 19952, first ed. 1971, p. 58). The Jews no longer see any contra-diction between the rationalistic, secular aspect of redemption and its mystical, universalist aspect, because the first symbolizes the second. Anguish over exile was no less acute, but it ca-me with the conviction that exile itself was rooted in Creation itself (God too shared in it!) and that the whole cosmos needed to be redeemed, an achievement requiring the work of man. It is my conviction that the vision of Walter Benjamin, so close to Scholem’s in centering on the idea of construction together with that of destruction, nevertheless stands apart in its rejec-tion of an apocalyptic conception of redemption, in which there is no continuity between histo-ry and redemption. Benjamin’s conception is influenced by the secularized doctrine of Luria, which would fuel the progressive, rationalistic, and Enlightenment-oriented vision of the follo-wing centuries, up to the reform of Haskalah and beyond, even up to the messianic ideas of Marx himself. “The liberation of Israel,” Scholem wrote, “will proceed side by side with the li-beration of the entire world.” (ivi, p. 48).

I engage with Kittay's theory of moral status and obligations towards people with severe cogni-tive disabilities. While I certainly agree with the inclusion of people with cognitive disabilities in moral personhood, I disagree with Kittay’s strategy, which rests in part on the distinction be-tween the moral status of humans and nonhuman animals, leading to the exclusion of the latter. I present a counterargument to Kittay’s position regarding the unjust exclusion of nonhuman animals from the sphere of moral personhood. She emphasizes relational identities and care in the definition of human worth as specific aspects of the moral relation of the human that ground its higher moral worth. I disagree with the thesis that these aspects are specific to hu-man relations and thus define humans' privileged moral status. Kittay's rejection of the compar-ison between humans with disabilities and nonhuman animals is subject to the challenge of species narcissism and hierarchical views that privilege humans. I propose to extend Kittay's re-lational perspective to nonhuman animals by emphasizing the interconnectedness of all sentient beings. This favours a more inclusive and compassionate approach and promotes a more just society that values the well-being of all living beings and challenges hierarchical moral value sys-tems.

This essay addresses some of the thoughts expressed by Thomas More on just war and interna-tional relationsin the light of Machiavellian realism and theethic-political idealism ascribed to Erasmus of Rotterdam. We propose that More’s idea of “just war” canbe interpreted as an ear-ly modern attempt to legitimise the paradigmatic role of State policies designed to export and impose certain political and cultural models on other States. That same idea might contextually contribute to qualify a paradigm of international relationswhich, by combining realism and ide-alism, preserves a distinctively ethical basis while justifying war as a strategy of reduction of moral evil.

The essay offers a reflection on the parent-child relationship as portrayed in Lorcan Finnegan’s film Vivarium. Drawing from the dystopian narrative of the film, which premiered at Cannes in 2019, the article examines the thesis of children conceived as “parasites.” It aims to clarify this notion's political, philosophical, and legal implications and explores how it is developed throu-ghout the film.

Jus cogens is the ultimate source of international law. Differently from other forms of custom-ary laws, jus cogens underpins non-rebuttable norms overriding all contrary customary (with no peremptory status) and contractual laws. Yet, among the sources listed by art.38 of the Statute of the ICJ, there is no specifically identified category for jus cogens. The paper asks what is the nature of jus cogens and compare it with other available types of international norms. It sug-gests that jus cogens norms can be constituted as a specific sub-category among the already ex-isting sources of international law.