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.

The product of decades of reflection on issues of authority, inequality, and injustice, this volume analyzes fluctuating moral beliefs and behavior in political and economic affairs at different points in history, from the early Middle Ages in England to the prospects for liberalism under twentieth-century Soviet socialism.

Considered one of Russia’s greatest philosophers, Vladimir Soloviev (1853–1900) was also a theologian, historian, poet, and social and political critic. His works have emerged to enjoy renewed attention in post–Soviet Russia, and his concerns echo in contemporary discussions of politics, law, and morality. In this collection of Soloviev’s essays—many translated into English for the first time—the philosopher explores an array of social issues, from the death penalty to nationalism to women’s rights. Soloviev reacts against the tradition of European rationalist thought and seeks to synthesize religious philosophy, science, and ethics in the context of a universal Christianity. In these writings he reveals the centrality of human rights in his Christian worldview, not only as an abstract theory but also as an inspiration in everyday life. In a substantive introduction and copious annotations to the essays, Vladimir Wozniuk points out distinctive and often overlooked features of Soloviev’s works while illuminating his place within both the Russian and Western intellectual traditions.

First published in French in 2010, Equaliberty brings together essays by Étienne Balibar, one of the preeminent political theorists of our time. The book is organized around equaliberty, a term coined by Balibar to connote the tension between the two ideals of modern democracy: equality (social rights and political representation) and liberty (the freedom citizens have to contest the social contract). He finds the tension between these different kinds of rights to be ingrained in the constitution of the modern nation-state and the contemporary welfare state. At the same time, he seeks to keep rights discourse open, eschewing natural entitlements in favor of a deterritorialized citizenship that could be expanded and invented anew in the age of globalization. Deeply engaged with other thinkers, including Arendt, Rancière, and Laclau, he posits a theory of the polity based on social relations. In Equaliberty Balibar brings both the continental and analytic philosophical traditions to bear on the conflicted relations between humanity and citizenship.

Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice is a collection of essays of the moral and political philosophy of Jan Narveson. The essays in this collection share a consistent theme running through much of Narveson's moral and political philosophy, namely that politics and morals stem from the interests of individual people, and have no antecedent authority over us. Rather, the source of such authority lies in the way people are related to one another, and most especially, in the exigencies of cooperation. Humans have plenty of problems, Narveson argues, but we are perhaps unique among animals in that our worst enemies, often enough, are other humans. The rules of morals and the devices of politics, in the view Narveson holds, deal with these problems by identifying the potential for gain from cooperation, and loss from the reverse. The essays express a collective antipathy for the ways in which modern political and moral philosophy has ridden roughshod over sane and efficient social restrictions, leaving us with a social scene devoted mainly to satisfying the cravings for power of the politically ambitious. Politics, Narveson argues with distress, has subverted morals. The essays in this collection, in various ways and as applied to various aspects of the scene, detail these charges, arguing that the ultimate and true point of politics and morals is to enable us to make our lives better, according to our varied senses of what that might mean.

In Ethics–Politics–Subjectivity, Simon Critchley takes up three questions at the centre of contemporary theoretical debate: What is ethical experience? What can be said of the subject who has this experience? What, if any, is the relation of ethical experience to politics? These questions are approached by way of a critical confrontation with a number of major thinkers, including Lacan, Genet, Blanchot, Nancy, Rorty and, in particular, Levinas and Derrida. Critchley offers a critical reconstruction of Levinas's notion of ethical experience and, questioning the religious pietism and political conservatism of the dominant interpretation of Levinas's work, develops an ethics of finitude which, far from being tragic, opens on to an experience of humour and the comic. Using this reading of Levinas as a way of unlocking the rich ethical potential of Derrida's work, Critchley outlines and defends the political possibilities of deconstruction. On the basis of Derrida's recent work, Critchley attempts to rethink notions of friendship, democracy, economics and technology.

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.