Download or read book Toward a Liberalism written by Richard Flathman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Toward a Liberalism, Richard Flathman shows why and how political theory can contribute to the quality of moral and political practice without violating, as empiricist- and idealist-based theories tend to do, liberal commitments to individuality and plurality. Exploring the tense but inevitable relationship between liberalism and authority, he advances a theory of democratic citizenship tempered by appreciation of the ways in which citizenship is implicated with and augments authority. Flathman examines the relationship of individual rights to freedom on one hand and to authority and power on the other, rejecting the quest for a single homogenous and authoritative liberal theory.
Download or read book Politics and Passion written by Michael Walzer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberalism is egalitarian in principle, but why doesn’t it do more to promote equality in practice? In this book, the distinguished political philosopher Michael Walzer offers a critique of liberal theory and demonstrates that crucial realities have been submerged in the evolution of contemporary liberal thought. In the standard versions of liberal theory, autonomous individuals deliberate about what ought to be done—but in the real world, citizens also organize, mobilize, bargain, and lobby. The real world is more contentious than deliberative. Ranging over hotly contested issues including multiculturalism, pluralism, difference, civil society, and racial and gender justice, Walzer suggests ways in which liberal theory might be revised to make it more hospitable to the claims of equality. Combining profound learning with practical wisdom, Michael Walzer offers a provocative reappraisal of the core tenets of liberal thought. Politics and Passion will be required reading for anyone interested in social justice—and the means by which we seek to achieve it.
Download or read book Beyond Political Liberalism written by Troy Lewis Dostert and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Political Liberalism: Toward a Post-Secular Ethics of Public Life, Troy Dostert offers a critical examination of political liberalism, the approach to liberal political theory advanced most forcefully in the later work of John Rawls. Political liberalism's defenders claim that an overlapping consensus of shared values holds out the strongest prospects for regulating democratic politics in light of our moral diversity. Dostert contends, however, that the attempt to establish such a consensus in fact works to restrict and control the presence of religious and other moral perspectives that can ennoble and invigorate public life. Dostert argues that there is a steep price to be paid for this conception of politics, for what results is a political vision characterized by a profound distrust and fear of citizens' comprehensive convictions - the animating source of many citizens' political activity. He suggests that a post-secular ethics is a more appropriate response to moral diversity than restricting and managing the presence of religion and other moral perspectives in public life. of public discourse, as political liberalism counsels, but by encouraging dialogic practices such as forbearance, discipline, creativity, and sincerity. Such practices allow us to negotiate our moral disagreements in a spirit of mutuality, while also remaining open to discovering new formulations of worthwhile political ideals. By drawing on the religious witness of the civil rights movement and the work of theologian John Howard Yoder, Dostert elucidates these core dialogic practices and illustrates their value through a consideration of the contemporary debates surrounding international debt relief and abortion. Challenging the secular presuppositions of contemporary liberal political theory, Beyond Political Liberalism will appeal to scholars in political philosophy and contemporary theology. It will also interest religious communities and parishes dedicated to political activity.
Download or read book Liberalism and Transformation written by Dillon S. Tatum and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberalism and Transformation is the first scholarly work that explores the historical, philosophical, and intellectual development of global liberalism since the nineteenth century in the context of the deployment of violence, force, and intervention. Using an approach that includes interpretive and contextual analysis of texts from writers, philosophers, and policy-makers across nearly two centuries, as well as historiographical and historical analysis of archival documents (some of which have been recently declassified) and other media, Liberalism and Transformation narrates the messy history of emancipatory liberalism and its engagement with issues of war and peace. The book contributes to both a rethinking of liberal democracy and its relationship to world politics, as well as the effects of liberal internationalism on global processes. Furthermore, Liberalism and Transformation invites readers to reflect on global ethics and transformation in world politics. In the first place, it shows how ethical imaginings of the world have direct effects on actions of transformative importance. In the second place, it suggests that discourses are fluid, changing, and complex.
Download or read book The New Liberalism written by Jeffrey M. Berry and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you think liberalism is dead, think again. In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Jeffrey M. Berry argues that modern liberalism is not only still alive, it's actually thriving. Today's new liberalism has evolved from a traditional emphasis on bread-and-butter economic issues to a form he calls "postmaterialism"--quality-of-life concerns such as enhancing the environment, protecting consumers, or promoting civil rights. Berry credits the new liberalism's success to the rise of liberal citizen lobbying groups. By analyzing the activities of Congress during three sessions (1963, 1979, and 1991), he demonstrates the correlation between the increasing lobbying activities of citizen groups and a dramatic shift in the American political agenda from an early 1960s emphasis on economic equality to today's postmaterialist issues. Although conservative groups also began to emphasize postmaterial concerns--such as abortion and other family value issues--Berry finds that liberal citizen groups have been considerably more effective than conservative ones at getting their goals onto the congressional agenda and enacted into legislation. The book provides many examples of citizen group issues that Congress enacted into law, successes when citizen groups were in direct conflict with business interests and when demands were made on behalf of traditionally marginalized constituencies, such as the women's and civil rights movements. Berry concludes that although liberal citizen groups make up only a small portion of the thousands of lobbying organizations in Washington, they have been, and will continue to be, a major force in shaping the political landscape.
Download or read book Liberalism and Pluralism written by Richard Bellamy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Liberalism and Pluralism the author explores the challenges conflicting values, interests and identities pose to liberal democracy. Richard Bellamy illustrates his criticism and proposals by reference to such topical issues as the citizens charter, constitutional reform, the Rushdie affair and the development of the European Union.
Download or read book Civic Liberalism written by Thomas A. Spragens and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1999 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals, prominent political theorist Thomas A. Spragens, Jr. asserts that most versions of democratic ideals--libertarianism, liberal egalitarianism, difference liberalism, and the liberalism of fear--lead our polity significantly astray. Spragens offers another alternative. He argues that we should recover the multiple and complex aspirations found within the tradition of democratic liberalism and integrate them into a more compelling public philosophy for our time--or what he calls civic liberalism. Civic liberalism, Spragens contends, endorses both liberty and equality although neither can properly be understood as a maximizing principle. Instead, liberty should be seen as the constitutive threshold good of autonomy; and equality should be seen as a moral postulate and instrumental good. Moreover, civic liberalism explicitly embraces forms of 'fraternity, ' civic friendship, and civic virtue consistent with respect for social pluralism. Therefore, a better understanding of our democratic ideals will free us from the constrictive orthodoxies of the left and right, lead us toward better public policy, and help us become a well ordered society of flourishing, self-governing civic equals.
Download or read book Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism written by Peter Berkowitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Why Liberalism Failed written by Patrick J. Deneen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.
Download or read book Slouching Towards Gomorrah written by Robert H. Bork and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times bestselling book, Robert H. Bork, our country's most distinguished conservative scholar, offers a prophetic and unprecedented view of a culture in decline, a nation in such serious moral trouble that its very foundation is crumbling: a nation that slouches not towards the Bethlehem envisioned by the poet Yeats in 1919, but towards Gomorrah. Slouching Towards Gomorrah is a penetrating, devastatingly insightful exposé of a country in crisis at the end of the millennium, where the rise of modern liberalism, which stresses the dual forces of radical egalitarianism (the equality of outcomes rather than opportunities) and radical individualism (the drastic reduction of limits to personal gratification), has undermined our culture, our intellect, and our morality. In a new Afterword, the author highlights recent disturbing trends in our laws and society, with special attention to matters of sex and censorship, race relations, and the relentless erosion of American moral values. The alarm he sounds is more sobering than ever: we can accept our fate and try to insulate ourselves from the effects of a degenerating culture, or we can choose to halt the beast, to oppose modern liberalism in every arena. The will to resist, he warns, remains our only hope.
Download or read book The Lost History of Liberalism written by Helena Rosenblatt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms."--
Download or read book The Retreat of Western Liberalism written by Edward Luce and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “insightful and harrowing” analysis of the state of Western-style democracy by the Financial Times columnist and author of Time to Start Thinking (The New York Times). In his widely acclaimed book Time to Start Thinking, Financial Times columnist Edward Luce charted the course of America’s economic and geopolitical decline, proving to be a prescient voice on the state of the nation. In The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce makes a larger statement about the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of democratic liberalism—of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a symptom. Luce argues that we are on a menacing trajectory brought about by ignorance of what it took to build the West, arrogance toward society’s economic losers, and complacency about our system’s durability—attitudes that have been emerging since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unless the West can rekindle an economy that produces gains for the majority of its people, its political liberties may be doomed. Combining on-the-ground reporting with economic analysis, Luce offers a detailed projection of the consequences of the Trump administration and a forward-thinking analysis of what those who believe in enlightenment values must do to protect them.
Download or read book What Was Liberalism written by James Traub and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of liberalism, from its earliest origins to its imperiled present and uncertain future Donald Trump is the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt. He has company: the leaders of Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, among others, are also avowed illiberals. What happened? Why did liberalism lose the support it once enjoyed? In What Was Liberalism?, James Traub returns to the origins of liberalism, in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions and in the works of such great thinkers as John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. Although the first liberals were deeply skeptical of majority rule, the liberal faith adapted, coming to encompass belief in not only individual rights and free markets, but also state action to provide basic goods. By the second half of the twentieth century, liberalism had become the national creed of the most powerful country in the world. But this consensus did not last. Liberalism is now widely regarded as an antiquated doctrine. What Was LIberalism? reviews the evolution of the liberal idea over more than two centuries for lessons on how it can rebuild its majoritarian foundations.
Download or read book Robust Liberalism written by Timothy A. Beach-Verhey and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concisely critiquing the internal contradictions and practical limitations of the social contract theory espoused by John Locke and John Rawls, Timothy Beach-Verhey presents a covenantal theory for political life based on H. Richard Niebuhr's theology of radical monotheism. Beach-Verhey challenges sectarian interpretations of Niebuhr's theology and cogently demonstrates that a properly understood, theocentric, covenantal social theory can unite a diverse people in a shared polity. In so doing, he shows how such an understanding of both liberal democratic practices and Christian norms can provoke both the moral vision and the virtues that are required for robust, open, and engaged public life. Robust Liberalism makes a powerful contribution to contemporary discussion of American public discourse.
Download or read book Enduring Liberalism written by Robert Booth Fowler and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has the United States become more pluribus than unum? In terms of the nation's political beliefs, Robert Booth Fowler answers both yes and no. While his study affirms significant diversity among an elite cadre of public intellectuals, it vigorously denies it in a general public that collectively adheres to the same set of liberal core values. Enduring Liberalism pursues two objectives. One, it explores the political thought of public intellectuals and the general public since the 1960s. Two, it assesses contemporary and classic interpretations of American political thought in light of the study's findings. Fowler interprets the writings of public intellectuals like Robert Bellah, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Michael Walzer, William Bennett, Seymour Martin Lipset, William Galston, and others, as well as survey data of American political attitudes, to spotlight this oft-ignored divide between citizens and high-profile commentators, whose contentious debates are mistakenly assumed to reflect countrywide rifts. Fowler's argument is straightforward, but the interpretation is controversial. He recounts how the consensus liberal view in post-World War II American political thought collapsed among public intellectuals during the tumult of the 1960s and remains so to this day. His book examines the resultant diversity among contemporary public intellectuals, focusing on three predominant themes: concern for community, worry about the environment, and interest in civil society. In marked contrast to these disputatious commentators, Fowler finds the realm of popular opinion to be characterized by much greater consensus. Indeed, there seems to be a trend toward an even more general embrace of the liberal values that characterize our attitudes toward the individual, individual liberty, political equality, economic opportunity, and consent of the governed. Liberal values-above all the celebration of the individual and individual rights-have revolutionized the so-called private realms of life like family and religious communities to an extent unimagined in the 1950s. From these conclusions, Fowler demonstrates that most interpretations of American political thinking have exaggerated the extent of conflict and diversity in our nation's often raucous policy disputes. But he also cautions us not to overstate the public's widely shared liberal values and, by doing so, miss opportunities to facilitate problem solving or to recognize the ways in which our reform efforts may be constrained.
Download or read book Liberalism at Large written by Alexander Zevin and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The path-breaking history of modern liberalism told through the pages of one of its most zealous supporters In this landmark book, Alexander Zevin looks at the development of modern liberalism by examining the long history of the Economist newspaper, which, since 1843, has been the most tireless—and internationally influential—champion of the liberal cause anywhere in the world. But what exactly is liberalism, and how has its message evolved? Liberalism at Large examines a political ideology on the move as it confronts the challenges that classical doctrine left unresolved: the rise of democracy, the expansion of empire, the ascendancy of high finance. Contact with such momentous forces was never going to leave the proponents of liberal values unchanged. Zevin holds a mirror to the politics—and personalities—of Economist editors past and present, from Victorian banker-essayists James Wilson and Walter Bagehot to latter-day eminences Bill Emmott and Zanny Minton Beddoes. Today, neither economic crisis at home nor permanent warfare abroad has dimmed the Economist’s belief in unfettered markets, limited government, and a free hand for the West. Confidante to the powerful, emissary for the financial sector, portal onto international affairs, the bestselling newsweekly shapes the world its readers—as well as everyone else—inhabit. This is the first critical biography of one of the architects of a liberal world order now under increasing strain.
Download or read book Liberalism and Community written by Steven Kautz and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary political theory has experienced a recent revival of an old idea: that of community. In Liberalism and Community, Steven Kautz explores the consequences of this renewed interest for liberal politics. Whereas communitarian critics argue that liberalism is both morally and politically deficient because it does not adequately account for equality and virtue, Kautz defends liberalism by presenting reports of various partisan quarrels among liberals (who love liberty), democrats (who love equality), and republicans (who love virtue). Founded on the classic texts of Locke and Montesquieu, the liberalism that Kautz advocates is cautious and conservative. He defends it against the arguments of important new communitarians--Richard Rorty, Michael Walzer, Benjamin Barber, and Michael Sandel--and contrasts communitarian and liberal views on key questions. He discusses Walzer' s account of moral reasoning in a democratic community, engages Barber on the nature and limits of republican community, and takes on Rorty's communitarian account of moral psychology and the nature of the self. Kautz also explores the concepts of virtue, tolerance, and patriotism--issues of particular interest to communitarians which pose special problems for liberal political theory--in an effort to rebuild a new and more tenable interpretation of liberal rationality.
