Launching Liberalism

Launching Liberalism PDF Author: Michael P. Zuckert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In this volume, prominent political theorist Michael Zuckert presents an important and pathbreaking set of meditations on the thought of John Locke. In more than a dozen provocative essays, many appearing in print for the first time, Zuckert explores the complexity of Locke's engagement with his philosophical and theological predecessors, his profound influence on later liberal thinkers, and his amazing success in transforming the political understanding of the Anglo-American world. At the same time, he also demonstrates Locke's continuing relevance in current debates involving such prominent thinkers as Rawls and MacIntyre. Zuckert's careful reconsideration of Locke's role as "launcher" of liberalism involves a sustained engagement with the hermeneutical issues surrounding Locke, an innovator who faced special rhetorical needs in addressing his contemporaries and the future. It also involves highlighting the novelty of Locke's position by examining his stance toward the philosophical and religious traditions in place when he wrote. Zuckert argues that neither of the dominant ways of understanding Locke's relations to his predecessors and contemporaries is adequate; he is not well seen as a follower of any orthodoxy nor of any anti-orthodoxy of his day, either philosophical or theological. He found a path to innovation that was philosophically radical but which was also able to connect with prevailing and accepted traditions. That allowed him to exercise a practical influence in history rarely, if ever, matched by any other philosopher. Zuckert illustrates that influence by showing how William Blackstone used Lockean philosophy to reshape the common law and how the Americans of the eighteenth century used Lockean philosophy to reshape Whig political thought. Zuckert argues that Locke's philosophy has continuing philosophic and political force, a proposition he demonstrates by arguing that Locke presents a form of political philosophy superior to that of the liberal theorists of our day and that he has solid rejoinders to contemporary critics of liberalism.

Launching Liberalism

Launching Liberalism PDF Author: Michael P. Zuckert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this volume, prominent political theorist Michael Zuckert presents an important and pathbreaking set of meditations on the thought of John Locke. In more than a dozen provocative essays, many appearing in print for the first time, Zuckert explores the complexity of Locke's engagement with his philosophical and theological predecessors, his profound influence on later liberal thinkers, and his amazing success in transforming the political understanding of the Anglo-American world. At the same time, he also demonstrates Locke's continuing relevance in current debates involving such prominent thinkers as Rawls and MacIntyre. Zuckert's careful reconsideration of Locke's role as "launcher" of liberalism involves a sustained engagement with the hermeneutical issues surrounding Locke, an innovator who faced special rhetorical needs in addressing his contemporaries and the future. It also involves highlighting the novelty of Locke's position by examining his stance toward the philosophical and religious traditions in place when he wrote. Zuckert argues that neither of the dominant ways of understanding Locke's relations to his predecessors and contemporaries is adequate; he is not well seen as a follower of any orthodoxy nor of any anti-orthodoxy of his day, either philosophical or theological. He found a path to innovation that was philosophically radical but which was also able to connect with prevailing and accepted traditions. That allowed him to exercise a practical influence in history rarely, if ever, matched by any other philosopher. Zuckert illustrates that influence by showing how William Blackstone used Lockean philosophy to reshape the common law and how the Americans of the eighteenth century used Lockean philosophy to reshape Whig political thought. Zuckert argues that Locke's philosophy has continuing philosophic and political force, a proposition he demonstrates by arguing that Locke presents a form of political philosophy superior to that of the liberal theorists of our day and that he has solid rejoinders to contemporary critics of liberalism.

Why America Needs a Left

Why America Needs a Left PDF Author: Eli Zaretsky
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745656560
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The United States today cries out for a robust, self-respecting, intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a left appears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, Eli Zaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments in American history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of New Left movements in the 1960s and after including the civil rights movement, the women's movement and gay liberation.In each period, he argues, the active involvement of the left - especially its critical interaction with mainstream liberalism - proved indispensable. American liberalism, as represented by the Democratic Party, is necessarily spineless and ineffective without a left. Correspondingly, without a strong liberal center, the left becomes sectarian, authoritarian, and worse. Written in an accessible way for the general reader and the undergraduate student, this book provides a fresh perspective on American politics and political history. It has often been said that the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and is distinctively European; Zaretsky argues, by contrast, that America has always had a vibrant and powerful left. And he shows that in those critical moments when the country returns to itself, it is on its left/liberal bases that it comes to feel most at home.

Making Liberalism New

Making Liberalism New PDF Author: Ian Afflerbach
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421440903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
"This book maps the rise of a modern liberal culture in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s. It shows how modern fiction writers responded to central concerns in liberal political thought, such as corporate ownership, reproductive rights, colorblind law, and presidential character"--

Liberalism Disavowed

Liberalism Disavowed PDF Author: Chua Beng Huat
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9814722502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
In Liberalism Disavowed, Chua Beng Huat examines the rejection of Western-style liberalism in Singapore and the way the People's Action Party has forged an independent non-Western ideology. This book explains the evolution of this communitarian ideology, with focus on three areas: public housing, multiracialism and state capitalism, each of which poses different challenges to liberal approaches. With the passing of the first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew and the end of the Cold War, the party is facing greater challenges from an educated populace that demands greater voice. This has led to liberalization of the cultural sphere, greater responsiveness and shifts in political rhetoric, but all without disrupting the continuing hegemony of the PAP in government.

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice PDF Author: Michael J. Sandel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521567411
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Previous edition published in 1982.

Liberalism: Old and New: Volume 24, Part 1

Liberalism: Old and New: Volume 24, Part 1 PDF Author: Ellen Frankel Paul
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521703055
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
In this collection, thirteen prominent philosophers and political scientists address the nature of liberalism, its origins, and its meaning and proper interpretation. Some essays examine the writings of liberalism's earliest defenders, like John Locke and Adam Smith, or the influence of classical liberalism on the American founders. Some focus on the Progressive movement and the rise of the administrative state, while others defend particular conceptions of liberalism or examine liberal theories of justice, including those of John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Several essays discuss the U.S. Constitution, seeking to determine whether it is best viewed as empowering the federal government to achieve certain ends, or as strictly limiting its power to ensure the broadest freedom for individuals to pursue their own ends. Other essays address the limits of economic freedom or focus on the nature and extent of property rights and the government's power of eminent domain.

Natural Rights and the New Republicanism

Natural Rights and the New Republicanism PDF Author: Michael Zuckert
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821525
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
In Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, Michael Zuckert proposes a new view of the political philosophy that lay behind the founding of the United States. In a book that will interest political scientists, historians, and philosophers, Zuckert looks at the Whig or opposition tradition as it developed in England. He argues that there were, in fact, three opposition traditions: Protestant, Grotian, and Lockean. Before the English Civil War the opposition was inspired by the effort to find the "one true Protestant politics--an effort that was seen to be a failure by the end of the Interregnum period. The Restoration saw the emergence of the Whigs, who sought a way to ground politics free from the sectarian theological-scriptural conflicts of the previous period. The Whigs were particularly influenced by the Dutch natural law philosopher Hugo Grotius. However, as Zuckert shows, by the mid-eighteenth century John Locke had replaced Grotius as the philosopher of the Whigs. Zuckert's analysis concludes with a penetrating examination of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the English "Cato," who, he argues, brought together Lockean political philosophy and pre-existing Whig political science into a new and powerful synthesis. Although it has been misleadingly presented as a separate "classical republican" tradition in recent scholarly discussions, it is this "new republicanism" that served as the philosophical point of departure for the founders of the American republic.

The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics

The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics PDF Author: Andrew R. Lewis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108417701
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Explains how abortion politics influenced a fundamental shift in conservative Christian politics, teaching conservatives to embrace rights arguments.

Law as Politics

Law as Politics PDF Author: David Dyzenhaus
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822322443
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Articles previously published in the Canadian journal of law and jurisprudence.

An Intellectual History of Liberalism

An Intellectual History of Liberalism PDF Author: Pierre Manent
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691207194
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Highlighting the social tensions that confront the liberal tradition, Pierre Manent draws a portrait of what we, citizens of modern liberal democracies, have become. For Manent, a discussion of liberalism encompasses the foundations of modern society, its secularism, its individualism, and its conception of rights. The frequent incapacity of the morally neutral, democratic state to further social causes, he argues, derives from the liberal stance that political life does not serve a higher purpose. Through quick-moving, highly synthetic essays, he explores the development of liberal thinking in terms of a single theme: the decline of theological politics. The author traces the liberal stance to Machiavelli, who, in seeking to divorce everyday life from the pervasive influence of the Catholic church, separated politics from all notions of a cosmological order. What followed, as Manent demonstrates in his analyses of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Guizot, and Constant, was the evolving concept of an individual with no goals outside the confines of the self and a state with no purpose but to prevent individuals from dominating one another. Weighing both the positive and negative effects of such a political arrangement, Manent raises important questions about the fundamental political issues of the day, among them the possibility of individual rights being reconciled with the necessary demands of political organization, and the desirability of a government system neutral about religion but not about public morals.