ABSTRACT
The slogan ‘the personal is political’ constitutes a challenge to traditional notions of the human as political. Human rights theories, utilitarianism, contract theories, emotivist ethico-political theories retain the notion of interpretation as fundamental, thereby continuing the Aristotelian view of the relationship of man to the world-that is, the rational animal who has a capacity for political activity. What is stressed here is the notion of the individual who is fundamentally reasonable and through the exercise of his reason can direct his actions and be responsible for them. Justice is based on a notion of equality of persons and is to be achieved by the liberation of the person to be himself. The basic, operative assumption is that of a fixed, given, human essence or nature which can, in principle, be known.
