This collection of essays by philosophers, political theorists, and social critics ranges over two millennia--from the ideas of Plato and Aristotle to those of contemporary thinkers such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick. It examines the nature of justice, its importance in human life, and its place among the other virtues. The scope of the collection gives a clear picture of the differences and continuities that have marked the debate: Plato's emphasis on the ideal of "sticking to one's task" contrasts (...) with the modern emphasis on individual rights, while the account of justice as part of the law of nature offered by Aristotle and Cicero contrasts with Hume's analysis of justice as an artificial virtue. Alan Ryan's introductory essay emphasizes the stringency of justice--showing how its demands can conflict with considerations of the general welfare. The book concludes with a discussion of Marx's view that justice is perhaps merely a concession to a world of scarcity and selfishness created by capitalist necessities. An excellent guide to interpretations of one of the central values of political life and thought, this book will interest students and scholars of political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

Explores Russell's activities as a polemicist, agitator, educator, and popularizer and discusses the evolution of his moral philosophy and its application, including his final battle against American intervention in Vietnam.

Tocqueville’s gifts as an observer and commentator on American life and democracy are brought to vivid life in this splendid volume. In On Tocqueville, Alan Ryan brilliantly illuminates the observations of the French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, who first journeyed to the United States in 1831 and went on to catalog the unique features of the American social contract in his two-volume masterpiece, Democracy in America. Often thought of as the father of "American Exceptionalism," Tocqueville sought to observe (...) the social conditions of emerging political equality in America, "a river that may be channeled but cannot be stopped in its course." In choosing America, he posed a central question of how a moderate, stable, and constitutional government is to be maintained in the wake of a revolution. As a dispassionate visitor, Tocqueville wanted to discover the social, moral, and economic arrangements that made liberty and self-government possible. In doing so, Tocqueville made a number of prescient observations about American life—whether it be the contrast between equality and liberty or Americans’ belief that they all belong to the middle class—that remain as relevant today as when they were first written. While Tocqueville is often praised by both conservatives and liberals, either for his distrust of big government and fondness for decentralized power or for his concern with association and community, both tend to overlook his contempt for the “coarse appearance” of the individual members of Congress as well as his enthusiasm for the brutal nature of our prison system. Alan Ryan examines the often complicated and elusive Democracy in America, tracing the influence of writers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Guizot, and explaining Tocqueville’s original conceptions of equality and individualism within their historical context. In Ryan’s hands, On Tocqueville becomes the perfect introduction and guide to Democracy in America. On Tocqueville: Democracy and America features: • a chronology of Alexis de Tocqueville's life • an introduction and text by Alan Ryan that provides crucial context and cogent analysis • key excerpts from Democracy in America. (shrink)

A guiding light to America’s Founding Fathers, Hobbes created the first truly modern political philosophy. In Leviathan, one of the greatest works of political philosophy of all time, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes created the idea of a “social contract” and set out to explicate a doctrine for the foundation of states and legitimate forms of government. In On Hobbes, Alan Ryan explains how Hobbes created the secular conception of the state and politics in one of the first truly (...) modern works of political philosophy. Inverting Aristotle’s view of politics, Hobbes argued that humans organize themselves into political communities not out of any sociable impulse to pursue the good life in common, but rather out of an unsociable fear of one another and for the sake of avoiding the greatest evil of all: death. Ryan explicates how modern notions of individual rights, sovereignty, representative government, and almost all liberal political theory find their foundation in the work of Hobbes. Excerpted here are: Leviathan, The Elements of Law. (shrink)

"When John Dewey died in 1952, he was memorialized as America's most famous philosopher, revered by liberal educators and deplored by conservatives, but universally acknowledged as his country's intellectual voice. Many things conspired to give Dewey an extraordinary intellectual eminence: He was immensely long-lived and immensely prolific; he died in his ninety-third year, and his intellectual productivity hardly slackened until his eighties." "Professor Alan Ryan offers new insights into Dewey's many achievements, his character, and the era in which (...) his scholarship had a remarkable impact. He investigates the question of what an American audience wanted from a public philosopher - from an intellectual figure whose credentials came from his academic standing as a philosopher, but whose audience was much wider than an academic one." "Ryan argues that Dewey's "religious" outlook illuminates his politics much more vividly than it does the politics of religion as ordinarily conceived. He examines how Dewey fit into the American radical tradition, how he was and was not like his transatlantic contemporaries, why he could for so long practice a form of philosophical inquiry that became unfashionable in England after 1914 at the latest."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

On Marx -- Selections -- A note on the selections -- Notes on James Mill -- The German ideology -- Theses on Feuerbach -- The Communist manifesto -- Capital -- The civil war in France -- Critique of the Gotha programme.

Contextualizing his views of government and the political community within the Ancient World, this history of political philosophy explores the revolutionary ideas from Plato's greatest pupil that built the foundation for a democratic tradition that is still alive today.

“Busyness” like many concepts trades on contrast. The most obvious contrast is with “real work” and ‘really working.” “Busy work” is usually pretend work; we try to look as though we are achieving something but all we are doing is shuffling the paper on our desks, polishing the inlet manifold rather than diagnosing the fault about to destroy the engine, marching our soldiers up to the top of the hill and marching them down again rather than engaging the enemy. All (...) the same, being “busy” is often said to be a good thing: the Puritan hymn writer Isaac Watts celebrated “the little busy bee” for improving the shining hour. For creatures other than the bee, busy may be a good thing to be but not usually the best thing: a midfield soccer player who is “busy” is useful, but a player of equal skill who is “economical” is better. My theme is that our attitude to “real work” is deeply ambiguous; on the one side, work is a curse, the labour to which we are doomed as a result of the Fall; its side-effect of enforcing upon us a necessary discipline and self-discipline is small consolation. On the other side, work is the expression of distinctive human powers and aspirations; work brings imagination into the world as well as drudgery. We imagine a world that does not exist but might, and then we set about creating it. The Fall was a happy Fall, and the need to labour was the first step in teaching the human species how to make the most of its potentialities. (shrink)

First published in 1974. As logician, economist, political theorist, practical politician and active champion of social freedom, John Stuart Mill is a figure of continuing importance. In this book the author does full justice to the range of Mill's achievements, providing an introductory guide to his most important and best known writings including Autobiography,A System of Logic,Utilitarianism,Liberty, and The Subjugation of Women. In their treatment of his works, the author seeks to emphasise Mill's approach to those issues -- education, the (...) conflict between social order and individual freedom, the unresolved state of the social sciences, rights and duties of citizens in a democratic state -- which remain most alive to us today. At the same time Mill is seen as part of his own age, responding to the anxieties that beset his contemporaries. This book will be of interest to students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Friends since childhood, Anais Darnby and Lindsay Markham have long harbored a secret passion for one another. When they finally confess their love, their future together seems assured, sealed with their searing embrace. But when a debauched Lindsay is seduced by a scheming socialite, a devastated Anais seeks refuge in another man's bed while Lindsay retreats to the exotic East. There, he is seduced again--this time by the alluring red smoke and sinister beauty of opium. Back home, Lindsay's addiction is (...) fed by the vogue for all things Oriental--especially its sensual pleasures--in fashionable London society. In his lucid moments, Lindsay still lusts after Anais, who can neither allow him near nor forget his smoldering touch. Tortured by two obsessions--opium and Anais--Lindsay must ultimately decide which is the one he truly cannot live without. (shrink)

The essay provides a short outline of Berlin's career and an assessment of his contribution to pluralist and liberal thought. He was a British academic with a Russian cast of mind, and an inhabitant of the ivory tower who was very much at home in the diplomatic and political world. Similarly, he was neither a historian of ideas nor a political philosopher in the narrow sense usually understood in the modern academy. Rather, he engaged in a trans-historical conversation about the (...) human condition with such figures as Machiavelli, Herzen, Vico, and Herder. The Russian liberal understanding of the historical and cultural setting was, in his view, much superior to that of familiar figures such as John Stuart Mill, just as the nonliberal Machiavelli cast a particularly vivid light on the problems of a pluralist world view. (shrink)

In this paper I intend to do two things. The first is to discuss a method of doing philosophy, the method of ‘ordinary language’ philosophy, as it is commonly and misleadingly called. (Its other common title: ‘Oxford Philosophy’ is even more misleading, since the roots of the method lie in Cambridge, and many of the most flourishing branches are in the United States rather than England.)If it needs a name, perhaps the best is—adapting Popper to our purpose—‘piecemeal philosophical engineering’. Such (...) a title would emphasise the attention to detail and the caution about conclusions that characterise the best of such work. The second aim of this paper is to apply the method thus discussed and defended to three questions connected with the concept of freedom. These problems arise out of three recent discussions of freedom—Thought and Action and Spinoza and the Idea of Freedom by Professor Hampshire, and Two Concepts of Liberty by Professor Berlin. (shrink)

This paper begins with some brief reflections on the 19th century apprehensions of Tocqueville and Mill and their relevance to ourselves, and goes on to ask for what and for whom universities exist. There is no incontrovertible answer, but one can distinguish two ideal types of a modern university, as I do. I praise one of them, without being dismissive of the others, and pose some problems about their institutionalization, and raise some old questions about the rights of citizens and (...) the privileges of guilds. I finally discuss the threats to free inquiry posed by well-intentioned governments in a British - rather than an American or European - context, recurring to themes from Tocqueville and Mill. (shrink)

The paper puts forward a pluralistic account of fairness within which concepts of equality of sacrifice and outcome, desert, and randomized outcomes within a fair framework all have their place. The distinction between efficiency and fairness is set out early on, and it is later argued that only efficient social arrangements can withstand the questioning about the fairness of the way they distribute their benefits to their beneficiaries and impose demands on those whose taxes pay for them that the modern (...) welfare state increasingly has to face. (shrink)