Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Power is often understood as the sheer use of force in social relations. While power is frequently expressed and experienced in these terms, it is also necessary for the generation, sustenance, and enhancement of life in all its forms. This means that, in a very basic way, power is constitutive of personhood and society. Understood and exercised in this way, power affirms the dignity of individual persons and promotes bonding between and among persons. Therefore, ethically, social power must be viewed as essentially relational and intended to be reciprocal, community building, and accountable. Contrarily understood and exercised, power gives rise to bondage through denial of the responsibility in its constitutive and relational character. Here, the emphasis on domination and power becomes alienating and irresponsible. The purpose of this article as a whole is to undertake an ethical analysis of social power that furthers exploration of the principles and implications of nonviolent strategies for the exercise of social power.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel16050569
Author: Charles S. Brown
Language: English
Topic: Philosophy and Social Theory
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
OpenAlex ID: W4410008416