Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

John Rawls

Language: English

Pages: 496

ISBN: 067403063X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


This last book by the late John Rawls, derived from written lectures and notes for his long-running course on modern political philosophy, offers readers an account of the liberal political tradition from a scholar viewed by many as the greatest contemporary exponent of the philosophy behind that tradition.

Rawls's goal in the lectures was, he wrote, "to identify the more central features of liberalism as expressing a political conception of justice when liberalism is viewed from within the tradition of democratic constitutionalism." He does this by looking at several strands that make up the liberal and democratic constitutional traditions, and at the historical figures who best represent these strands--among them the contractarians Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; the utilitarians Hume, Sidgwick, and J. S. Mill; and Marx regarded as a critic of liberalism. Rawls's lectures on Bishop Joseph Butler also are included in an appendix. Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls's lectures on these figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy--as well as how he saw his own work in relation to those traditions.

With its clear and careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism--and of their most influential proponents--this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds. Marked by Rawls's characteristic patience and curiosity, and scrupulously edited by his student and teaching assistant, Samuel Freeman, these lectures are a fitting final addition to his oeuvre, and to the history of political philosophy as well.

Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire: (Post)modern Interpretations

Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice

UBuntu and the Law: African Ideals and Postapartheid Jurisprudence (Just Ideas: Transformative Ideals of Justice in Ethical and Political Thought)

Between Past and Future (Penguin Classics)

The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and Its Limits

Justice beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all members of society have adequate all-purpose means to make use of these rights and liberties. Note that the liberties are given by a list. Later we try to make these elements more definite. To give the general idea: the equal basic liberties include the equal political liberties—the right to vote and to run for public office, and the right of free political speech of all kinds. They include also the civic liberties— the right of free non-political speech, the right of free association and, of

that persons must be presumed to intend their own good and so to preserve their own lives. However, at least from things he says elsewhere, he knows perfectly well that people sometimes do irrational things; and he believes that some persons, with full knowledge, prefer death rather than disgrace or dishonor. He says that most men would rather lose their lives than suffer slander; and that a son would rather die than obey an order to kill his father, on the grounds that if he were to do obey such

effective Sovereign to keep men in awe and discipline their passions, and that a state of war is a condition in which the will to contend by battle is publicly recognized. Furthermore, as I quoted Hobbes earlier, a state of war consists “not in battle only or the act of fighting . . . but in a known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is Peace” (Leviathan, p. 62). I take “publicly recognized” to mean that everybody knows, and everybody

Good of those under that Law. Could they be happier without it, the Law, as a useless thing would of itself vanish. . . . the end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom. . . . where there is no Law, there is no Freedom. For Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be, where there is no Law.” For Locke, then, the ideas of reason and law, of freedom and the general good, are closely connected. The fundamental law of nature is

Press, 1998). [ 125 ] lo c k e Not even a king is released from his duty to honor and respect his mother (¶¶66, 68). Thus, while our reaching the age of reason brings to an end our subjection to parental authority, it does not affect certain other duties and obligations we owe our parents. (c) The duty to respect the (real) property of another in a state of nature—land, its fruits, etc.—does not arise from consent, but from the precepts of natural law that apply in that state in accordance

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