In this book, Michael Sandel takes up some of the hotly contested moral and political issues of our time, including affirmative action, assisted suicide, abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, the meaning of toleration and civility, the gap between rich and poor, the role of markets, and the place of religion in public life. He argues that the most prominent ideals in our political life--individual rights and freedom of choice--do not by themselves provide an adequate ethic for a democratic society. Sandel calls for a politics that gives greater emphasis to citizenship, community, and civic virtue, and that grapples more directly with questions of the good life. Liberals often worry that inviting moral and religious argument into the public sphere runs the risk of intolerance and coercion. These essays respond to that concern by showing that substantive moral discourse is not at odds with progressive public purposes, and that a pluralist society need not shrink from engaging the moral and religious convictions that its citizens bring to public life.

This volume brings together distinguished philosophers with interdisciplinary expertise to show how the resources of philosophy can be employed in the tasks of evaluating economics and fostering policy debates. Contributors offer analyses of basic ideas in economics, such as the notion of efficiency, "economic man", incentives, self-interest, and utility maximization. They discuss key concepts in political theory such as desert, compensation, autonomy, equality, consent or fairness. The book then offers examples of how philosophical resources can be applied to specific, timely debates, such as discrimination, affirmative action, and ethical considerations in Social Security. These applications demonstrate how philosophy, politics, and economics can be fruitfully combined, while the more theoretical chapters clarify fundamental relationships across these related disciplines. Ultimately, the text guides students and scholars in expanding their perspectives as they approach the necessarily complex research questions of today and tomorrow.

This book brings together for the first time R. G. Collingwood's political and related writings, in which he places political action in the context of action as a whole and addresses the substantive social and political issues - in particular Nazism and Fascism - which he perceived as a threatto European civilization. This is the first time that substantial philosophical arguments from the unpublished manuscripts have been reproduced since Malcolm Knox edited the posthumously published Idea of History.

As a political philosopher, Kant has until recently been overshadowed by his compatriots Hegel and Marx. With his strong defense of the rights of the person and his deep insight into the strengths and weaknesses of modern society Kant, possibly more than any other political thinker, anticipated the problems of the late twentieth century. Kant's political philosophy, wedded as it is to rights, reform and gradual progress, is emerging from the shadows cast by Hegelian and Marxist thinking about the state. In this volume, thirteen distinguished contributors from the United States, Canada, Britain, and Germany cast light on important aspects of Kant's liberal thinking. Key topics covered include Kant's liberal reformism, his relation with Hegel, his attitude to women, the use of reason, revolution, Kant's optimism and his moral and legal rigorism. Howard Williams is a reader in political theory in the Department of International Politics, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. His previous publications include Kant's Political Philosophy, Concepts of Ideology, and Hegel, Heraclitus, and Marx's Dialectic.

War has been a key topic of speculation and theorising ever since the invention of philosophy in classical antiquity. This anthology brings together the work of distinguished contemporary political philosophers and theorists who address the leading normative and conceptual issues concerning war. The book is divided into three parts: initiating war, waging war, and ending war. The contributors aim to provide a comprehensive introduction to each of these main areas of dispute concerning war. Each essay is an original contribution to ongoing debates on various aspects of war and also provides a survey of the main topics in each subfield. Serving as a companion to the theoretical issues pertaining to war, this volume also is an important contribution to debates in political philosophy. It can serve as a textbook for relevant courses on war offered in philosophy departments, religious studies programs, and law schools.

We are currently witnessing an increasingly influential counterrevolution in political theory, evident in the dialectical return to classical political science pioneered most prominently by Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. In this context, the work of the relatively unknown Aurel Kolnai is of great importance. Kolnai was one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century to place the restoration of common-sense evaluation and philosophical realism at the center of his philosophical and political itinerary. In this volume, Daniel J. Mahoney presents Kolnai's major writings in political philosophy, writings that explore - in ways that are diverse but complementary - Kolnai's critique of progressive or egalitarian democracy. The title essay contains Kolnai's fullest account of the limits of liberty understood as emancipation from traditional, natural, or divine restraints. 'The Utopian Mind, ' a pr, cis of Kolnai's critique of utopianism in a posthumous book of the same title, appears here for the first time. 'Conservative and Revolutionary Ethos, ' Kolnai's remarkable 1972 essay comparing conservative and revolutionary approaches to political life, appears for the first time in English translation. The volume also includes a critically sympathetic evaluation of Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics and an incisive criticism of Jacques Maritain's efforts to synthesize Christian orthodoxy and progressive politics. Privilege and Liberty and Other Essays in Political Philosophy is a searching critique of political utopianism, as well as a pathbreaking articulation of conservative constitutionalism as the true support for human liberty properly understood. It is a major contribution to Christian and conservative political reflection in our ti

The idea of social injustice is pivotal to much contemporary moral and political philosophy. Starting from a comprehensive and engaging account of the idea of social injustice, this book covers a whole range of issues, including distributive justice, exploitation, torture, moral motivations, democratic theory, voting behaviour and market socialism.

David Miller explores what justice means for real people and challenges philosophical theories that ignore the facts of human life.

A cast of distinguished contributors engage critically with Martin Luther King's understudied writings on labor and welfare rights, voting rights, racism, civil disobedience, nonviolence, economic inequality, poverty, love, just-war theory, virtue ethics, political theology, imperialism, nationalism, reparations, and social justice