The Philosophical Meetings of Monaco: Security

The Philosophical Meetings of Monaco continue with the theme of Security on Thursday December 12, 2024 at 7 pm in the Princess Grace Theatre.

By security, we can understand that condition which allows one to be or feel protected from dangers and risks, or which gives the possibility of preventing, eliminating or making less serious damage, difficulties, unpleasant, annoying, harmful events.

Almost the entire history of philosophy, from Machiavelli to Hobbes, from Locke to Montesquieu, from Smith to Bentham, from Marx to Foucault, has attempted to think about the link between security and freedom, by insisting on the balance between the two notions, the excessive weight of security threatening to cause freedom to fall, the extreme valorization of freedom threatening to block the functions of security – understood both as an individual right, as social security (all activities specific to social policy: supervision of work, income, health, the environment, urban planning and construction, traffic, communication, education, culture, free time, etc.) and as national security or “safety”.