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Euseppi, Giuseppe; Cepparulo, Alessandra --- "Variations on the Lupus et Agnus Story: In Search of the Homo Sapiens" [2007] ELECD 217; in Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel (eds), "Democracy, Freedom and Coercion" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Democracy, Freedom and Coercion

Editor(s): Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201263

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Variations on the Lupus et Agnus Story: In Search of the Homo Sapiens

Author(s): Euseppi, Giuseppe; Cepparulo, Alessandra

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

1. Variations on the Lupus et Agnus
story: in search of the homo sapiens
Giuseppe Eusepi and Alessandra Cepparulo

Ad rivum eundem Lupus et Agnus venerant siti compulsi: superior stabat Lupus,
longeque inferior Agnus . . . Cur, inquit, turbulentam fecisti mihi istam bibenti? . . .
Respondit Agnus: equidem natus non eram. Pater hercle tuus, inquit, maledixit
mihi. (Phaedrus)



INTRODUCTION

The quotation in the epigraph gives this work the classical flavour of
ancient time fables, where animals were used as a way to criticize human
vices. Unusual to the modern reader as this fashion is, we follow this mode.
Not as a literary exercise, but in Hobbes's footsteps who grounds his
construction on the idea that humans are wolves. Hobbes is, in fact, the
mainstay of our analysis as well as that of the authors we scrutinize.
No doubt Hobbes was central to Buchanan's analysis in the Limits of
Liberty. This is not the least true of The Calculus of Consent where the
influence of Spinoza stands out in his pages1 with intense strength. Yet,
Buchanan labels himself as a Hobbesian, not a Spinozian, so there is no
reason for us to speculate on this.
The present chapter sets out thus to propose a variation on the theme of
the state of nature and the relationships among the individuals therein. In
the next three sections, it addresses the impact of the homo lupus construc-
tion on institution-making from the original Hobbes's paradigm in the
second section to Buchanan's nuanced version ...