The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue

The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue PDF Author: Ludvig Beckman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351325426
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
At the start of the new millennium there has been a growing awareness that traditional political institutions and ideologies do not correspond to the demands and aspirations held by many individuals and groups. Ideals and interests previously without much impact on the political debate have gained access to the public arena. These new claims include demands for recognition of homosexuals and their rights, affirmation of the particularities of indigenous peoples, sensitivity to the cultures and languages of immigrants, respect for children and their needs, solidarity with people of the developing countries and their fight for independence, care for nature, animals, attention to the social status of women, and so on. As a consequence, many governments now regulate and support many different conceptions of the good life and its virtues.In this volume, schematically divided into two parts, Ludvig Beckman challenges the common view that support for the good life, the politics of virtue, is in conflict with liberal principles. In clear, analytical language he addresses the question of what a state should do. Chapter 1 attempts to specify the meaning of "liberalism"; chapter 2 discusses the meaning of tolerance and makes more specific the notion of "virtue"; chapters 3 and 4 assess ethical and political liberalism as exemplified by the writings of Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. In part two, chapter 5 discusses the clash between norms of justice and conceptions of virtue in the family; chapter 6 explores the meaning of the idea of an ethically neutral state; chapter 7 explores three different arguments for the neutral state as found in the work of Ronald Dworkin; chapter 8 presents an analysis of the idea of the neutral state with the theory of John Rawls put under scrutiny; chapter 9 explains why the attempt to justify the neutral state by referring to modified skepticism fails and proposes a distinction between being skeptical and being critical.Participating in the current debate on communitarianism, The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue will be particularly interesting to people engaged in the public debate on ethics, morality and the state. It will also be of interest to teachers and researchers in the fields of politics and philosophy.

The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue

The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue PDF Author: Ludvig Beckman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351325426
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book

Book Description
At the start of the new millennium there has been a growing awareness that traditional political institutions and ideologies do not correspond to the demands and aspirations held by many individuals and groups. Ideals and interests previously without much impact on the political debate have gained access to the public arena. These new claims include demands for recognition of homosexuals and their rights, affirmation of the particularities of indigenous peoples, sensitivity to the cultures and languages of immigrants, respect for children and their needs, solidarity with people of the developing countries and their fight for independence, care for nature, animals, attention to the social status of women, and so on. As a consequence, many governments now regulate and support many different conceptions of the good life and its virtues.In this volume, schematically divided into two parts, Ludvig Beckman challenges the common view that support for the good life, the politics of virtue, is in conflict with liberal principles. In clear, analytical language he addresses the question of what a state should do. Chapter 1 attempts to specify the meaning of "liberalism"; chapter 2 discusses the meaning of tolerance and makes more specific the notion of "virtue"; chapters 3 and 4 assess ethical and political liberalism as exemplified by the writings of Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. In part two, chapter 5 discusses the clash between norms of justice and conceptions of virtue in the family; chapter 6 explores the meaning of the idea of an ethically neutral state; chapter 7 explores three different arguments for the neutral state as found in the work of Ronald Dworkin; chapter 8 presents an analysis of the idea of the neutral state with the theory of John Rawls put under scrutiny; chapter 9 explains why the attempt to justify the neutral state by referring to modified skepticism fails and proposes a distinction between being skeptical and being critical.Participating in the current debate on communitarianism, The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue will be particularly interesting to people engaged in the public debate on ethics, morality and the state. It will also be of interest to teachers and researchers in the fields of politics and philosophy.

The Liberal State & the Politics of Virtue

The Liberal State & the Politics of Virtue PDF Author: Ludvig Beckman
Publisher: Transaction Pub
ISBN: 9780765800862
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
At the start of the new millennium there has been a growing awareness that traditional political institutions and ideologies do not correspond to the demands and aspirations held by many individuals and groups. Ideals and interests previously without much impact on the political debate have gained access to the public arena. These new claims include demands for recognition of homosexuals and their rights, affirmation of the particularities of indigenous peoples, sensitivity to the cultures and languages of immigrants, respect for children and their needs, solidarity with people of the developing countries and their fight for independence, care for nature, animals, attention to the social status of women, and so on. As a consequence, many governments now regulate and support many different conceptions of the good life and its virtues. In this volume, schematically divided into two parts, Ludvig Beckman challenges the common view that support for the good life, the politics of virtue, is in conflict with liberal principles. In clear, analytical language he addresses the question of what a state should do. Chapter 1 attempts to specify the meaning of "liberalism"; chapter 2 discusses the meaning of tolerance and makes more specific the notion of "virtue"; chapters 3 and 4 assess ethical and political liberalism as exemplified by the writings of Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. In part two, chapter 5 discusses the clash between norms of justice and conceptions of virtue in the family; chapter 6 explores the meaning of the idea of an ethically neutral state; chapter 7 explores three different arguments for the neutral state as found in the work of Ronald Dworkin; chapter 8 presents an analysis of the idea of the neutral state with the theory of John Rawls put under scrutiny; chapter 9 explains why the attempt to justify the neutral state by referring to modified skepticism fails and proposes a distinction between being skeptical and being critical. Participating in the current debate on communitarianism, The Liberal State and the Politics of Virtue will be particularly interesting to people engaged in the public debate on ethics, morality and the state. It will also be of interest to teachers and researchers in the fields of politics and philosophy. Ludvig Beckman teaches political theory in the department of government at Uppsala University and has published several articles on liberal political thought.

The Politics of Virtue

The Politics of Virtue PDF Author: John Milbank
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783486503
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Two expert authors combine a compelling critique of contemporary liberalism with post-liberal alternatives in politics, the economy, culture and international affairs, to provide the fullest account so far of the post-liberal alternative in Western politics.

Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism

Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism PDF Author: Peter Berkowitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400822904
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Virtue has been rediscovered in the United States as a subject of public debate and of philosophical inquiry. Politicians from both parties, leading intellectuals, and concerned citizens from diverse backgrounds are addressing questions about the content of our character. William Bennett's moral guide for children, A Book of Virtues, was a national bestseller. Yet many continue to associate virtue with a prudish, Victorian morality or with crude attempts by government to legislate morals. Peter Berkowitz clarifies the fundamental issues, arguing that a certain ambivalence toward virtue reflects the liberal spirit at its best. Drawing on recent scholarship as well as classical political philosophy, he makes his case with penetrating analyses of four central figures in the making of modern liberalism: Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and Mill. These thinkers are usually understood to have neglected or disparaged virtue. Yet Berkowitz shows that they all believed that government resting on the fundamental premise of liberalism--the natural freedom and equality of all human beings--could not work unless citizens and officeholders possess particular qualities of mind and character. These virtues, which include reflective judgment, sympathetic imagination, self-restraint, the ability to cooperate, and toleration do not arise spontaneously but must be cultivated. Berkowitz explores the various strategies the thinkers employ as they seek to give virtue its due while respecting individual liberty. Liberals, he argues, must combine energy and forbearance, finding public and private ways to support such nongovernmental institutions as the family and voluntary associations. For these institutions, the liberal tradition powerfully suggests, play an indispensable role not only in forming the virtues on which liberal democracy depends but in overcoming the vices that it tends to engender. Clearly written and vigorously argued, this is a provocative work of political theory that speaks directly to complex issues at the heart of contemporary philosophy and public discussion. New Forum Books makes available to general readers outstanding, original, interdisciplinary scholarship with a special focus on the juncture of culture, law, and politics. New Forum Books is guided by the conviction that law and politics not only reflect culture, but help to shape it. Authors include leading political scientists, sociologists, legal scholars, philosophers, theologians, historians, and economists writing for nonspecialist readers and scholars across a range of fields. Looking at questions such as political equality, the concept of rights, the problem of virtue in liberal politics, crime and punishment, population, poverty, economic development, and the international legal and political order, New Forum Books seeks to explain--not explain away--the difficult issues we face today.

Liberal Purposes

Liberal Purposes PDF Author: William A. Galston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521422505
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman, who believe that the essence of liberalism is neutrality.

The Lost Soul of American Politics

The Lost Soul of American Politics PDF Author: John P. Diggins
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226148777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
The Lost Soul of American Politics is a provocative new interpretation of American political thought from the Founding Fathers to the Neo-Conservatives. Reassessing the motives and intentions of such great political thinkers as Madison, Thoreau, Lincoln, and Emerson, John P. Diggins shows how these men struggled to create an alliance between the politics of self-interest and a religious sense of moral responsibility—a tension that still troubles us today.

The Virtues of Liberalism

The Virtues of Liberalism PDF Author: James T. Kloppenberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195349822
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This spirited analysis--and defense--of American liberalism demonstrates the complex and rich traditions of political, economic, and social discourse that have informed American democratic culture from the seventeenth century to the present. The Virtues of Liberalism provides a convincing response to critics both right and left. Against conservatives outside the academy who oppose liberalism because they equate it with license, James T. Kloppenberg uncovers ample evidence of American republicans' and liberal democrats' commitments to ethical and religious ideals and their awareness of the difficult choices involved in promoting virtue in a culturally diverse nation. Against radical academic critics who reject liberalism because they equate it with Enlightenment reason and individual property holding, Kloppenberg shows the historical roots of American liberals' dual commitments to diversity, manifested in institutions designed to facilitate deliberative democracy, and to government regulations of property and market exchange in accordance with the public good. In contrast to prevailing tendencies to simplify and distort American liberalism, Kloppenberg shows how the multifaceted virtues of liberalism have inspired theorists and reformers from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison through Jane Addams and John Dewey to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then explains how these virtues persist in the work of some liberal democrats today. Endorsing the efforts of such neo-progressive and communitarian theorists and journalists as Michael Walzer, Jane Mansbridge, Michael Sandel, and E. J. Dionne, Kloppenberg also offers a more acute analysis of the historical development of American liberalism and of the complex reasons why it has been transformed and made more vulnerable in recent decades. An intelligent, coherent, and persuasive canvas that stretches from the Enlightenment to the American Revolution, from Tocqueville's observations to the New Deal's social programs, and from the right to worship freely to the idea of ethical responsibility, this book is a valuable contribution to historical scholarship and to contemporary political and cultural debates.

The Tyranny of Virtue

The Tyranny of Virtue PDF Author: Robert Boyers
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 198212718X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
From public intellectual and professor Robert Boyers, a thought-provoking volume of nine essays that elegantly and fiercely addresses recent developments in American culture and argues for the tolerance of difference that is at the heart of the liberal tradition. Written from the perspective of a liberal intellectual who has spent a lifetime as a writer, editor, and college professor, The Tyranny of Virtue is a precise and nuanced insider’s look at shifts in American culture—most especially in the American academy—that so many people find alarming. Part memoir and part polemic, an anatomy of important and dangerous ideas, and a cri de coeur lamenting the erosion of standard liberal values, Boyers’s collection of essays is devoted to such subjects as tolerance, identity, privilege, appropriation, diversity, and ableism that have turned academic life into a minefield. Why, Robert Boyers asks, are a great many liberals, people who should know better, invested in the drawing up of enemies lists and driven by the conviction that on critical issues no dispute may be tolerated? In stories, anecdotes, and character profiles, a public intellectual and longtime professor takes on those in his own progressive cohort who labor in the grip of a poisonous and illiberal fundamentalism. The end result is a finely tuned work of cultural intervention from the front lines.

Liberal Virtues

Liberal Virtues PDF Author: Stephen Macedo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Liberal democracy is often defended because it secures freedom, order, and prosperity. Without slighting these solid achievements, this book responds to those who worry that the theory and practice of free self-government neglect the importance of community and citizen virtue. Macedo offers a critical interpretation and original defense of the great tradition of individual freedom associated with John Locke and the founders of the American republic. He defends a theory of public justification, and explains how the legal and political institutions of liberal democracy embody a collective commitment to reasonableness. He concludes with the types of personalities and societies associated with life in a pluralistic, open, and tolerant liberal society. This provocative work will be of interest to scholars and laypeople concerned with the moral aspirations of contemporary democracy.

Liberal Purposes

Liberal Purposes PDF Author: William A. Galston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521410366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic institutions and practices--representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action--in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions.