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W tekście podejmuję analizę tytułowych wad senatu Rzeczypospolitej w pracach Antoniego Popławskiego. Dodatkowo próbuję odpowiedzieć na pytanie o oryginalność wykładni autora wybranych do analizy prac. Dochodzę do wniosku, że w pracach przedstawiających refleksję moralną Popławski pozostawał pod przemożnym wpływem idei fizjokratycznych, kopiując prace Françoisa Quesnay’a. Natomiast w kwestiach ustrojowych rezygnował z bezpośredniego powielania pomysłów politycznych fizjokratów. Wbrew temu jednak w Zbiorze niektórych materii politycznych Popławskiego czytelna jest fizjokratyczna obawa o sprawność władzy kolegialnej i ufność w system monarchistyczny. Konsekwencją przyjęcia tej postawy była krytyka władzy senatu, jako narażonej na nieprzestrzeganie sprawiedliwości i naruszanie szlacheckiej wolności politycznej. Polityczne wywody Popławskiego, w przeciwieństwie do pism moralnych, nie były jedynie prostą kompilacją.

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne 58 (2010), issue 2. The idea of the justice of the authority in the general meaning remains a central topic in Polish political theory. This has resulted in the frequent tackling of this problem, but it has not been reflected in the complexity of the theory. It is even difficult to talk about a theory in the case of the considerations analyzed. They were mostly very superficial mentions of the monarch’s justice, permeated with old-Polish legalism, a legalism reduced to the rule: the king is obliged to observe legal norms and to give priority to the good of those ruled over his own interests. This model determined the deliberations about justice. Most theoreticians could not see the possibility of strengthening the king’s influence on dispensing justice in the country, although there were exceptions to this view and not only among monarchists. Owing to this model in Polish political thought, after the fall of the First Republic of Poland it was easier to accept the idea of justice dispensed by broad bodies representing the community. The model was not even overturned by the instrumental transfer of the idea of natural justice to Poland. It was also not overturned by the doubts expressed by Wybicki about the possibilities of linking justice to the subjects’ happiness and political freedom.

In the 18th century the category of conscience became one of the rudimentary cultural values in Europe. For this reason, the relationship between politics and moral values became vital. However the earlier, modern European political theory was in opposition to the idea of governing on the basis of conscience, which is why the categories of truth and morality from the pre-Enlightenment period did not constitute any significant political values. In the Polish political thought of the second half of the 18 th century, there was the conviction that the politics cannot be separated from morality. Nonetheless the unwillingness of the king to interfere with the issues of the conscience, based on the values of the noble freedom and equality resulted in the fact that the Polish authors of the texts within the scope of the political theory had not made the king responsible for the truth and morality.