In Czech thought, Božena Komárková personifies the struggle to set humans free. She developed the problems of freedom with specific re¬ference to human rights. Those were for her not of purely theoretic interest, but rather a principal condition of human progress and dignity. She followed the development of human rights as a specific western unfolding of the Christian idea in confrontation with philosophy. The source of rights cannot refer to humans alone without a reference to transcendence. She based her political philosophy on the analysis of community in Plato and in his Christian heir, Augustine. Her life story testifies to her commitment to humanitarian ideals, confirmed particularly by her civic courage in the time of totalitarian regime. In that spirit, too, she became a signatory of Charta 77. Together with a theological foundation, the philosophical tradition of the first Czechoslovak republic, influenced primarily by the humanistic perspective of T. G. Masaryk, grew in her thought into a powerful educational ethos which remained with her from Nazi prison through subsequent Communist persecution.
The well-known book by Peter Singer The Liberation of Animals has not only inspired a series of texts defending the rights and interests of animals, but has also provoked a discussion about what humanity is, what meaning can our belonging to the human kind have for us, and whether Singer’ critique of the “human prejudice” is justified. The paper considers two important defenders of “human prejudice”, B. A. O. Williams and C. Diamond, who both claim the concept of human being to be a basic ethical concept. In the first part, we will present Williams’s argument that solidarity and identity with one’s species doesn’t have the structure of a blameworthy privilege similar to sexism and racism. In the second part, we will proceed to Diamond’s conception of human being that is founded in relations and responses towards the other. Just as our treatment of a human being depends on whether we see this person as our fellow, so our treatment of an animal depends on how we see it. In the last part, we will consider Diamond’s illustration of how it is possible to change our perception of an animal and thus to change our treatment of it., Kamila Pacovská., and Obsahuje poznámky a bibliografii
In this review study, the author above all observes the new perspectives on the philosophy of religion of T. G. Masaryk put forward in the book by M. Dokulil under review. He points to the multidisplinary approach (philosophy, theology, religious studies, ethics, sociology, psychology, selected natural sciences) of M. Dokulil, which is made possible by his immense erudition. The author of the study, together with the author of the book under review, refutes the frequently voiced opinion that would treat T. G. Masaryk as a thinker of the 19th century, significant only in his own time (and not a real philosopher at all), and on the contrary he attempts to show that Masaryk’s ideas and approach are still highly relevant. and Zdeněk Novotný.