The dissertation examines a wide spectrum of views on the relationship between the individual and society, ranging from extreme libertarianism to doctrinaire egalitarianism. Various meanings of liberty are reviewed, with a distinction being made between liberty as "merely" the absence of outsi.

Jacques Barzun's account of William James is a rich-textured and wide-ranging combination of homage, exegesis and personal reflections. In many places it is more Barzun than James; in some it is difficult to tell them apart. Barzun's book is in effect a love offering to a revered master of philosophy, psychology and human relations. He quotes Whitehead's characterization of James as "an adorable genius"; John Jay Chapman's judgment that "I cannot believe that anyone ever met James without feeling that James (...) was a better man than himself"; Santayana's "He was so extremely natural that there was no knowing what his nature was, or what to expect next"; Henry James's description of his brother as "a creature who speaks another language from the rest of mankind, and who would lend charm to a treadmill"; and Charles Peirce's encomium: "Who could be of a nature so different from his than I? He so concrete, so living; I a mere table of contents, so abstract.... Yet in all my life I found scarce a soul who seemed to comprehend naturally... the main spring of my life better than he did. He was even greater in the practice than in the theory of psychology." Barzun tells us that Peirce, jesting in earnest, changed his middle name from Sanders to Santiago in recognition of James's tireless efforts on his behalf over half a lifetime. (shrink)

While James Fishkin's attempt to connect ethical theory with political philosophy is sketchy and inconclusive, he provides in this book a useful survey of various types of meta-ethical reasoning. Basing his carefully argued analysis on a series of dialogues with "ordinary reasoners" on ethical problems, he constructs a spectrum of meta-ethical positions ranging from absolutism to amoralism. Because his ordinary reasoners are nearly all undergraduate and graduate students at Yale and Cambridge, two caveats must be entered about their representative character. (...) The ethical thinking of untempered youth is not a sure guide to a society's moral culture; and it may be surmised that a group of respondents from midwestern agricultural colleges would have provided a different set of responses than those from the elite institutions. (shrink)

It is James Edwards' contention that the fundamental intention of Wittgenstein's thinking is the transmittal of a moral vision. Since such a vision is nowhere specifically set forth in Wittgenstein's writings, Edwards must blaze a trail of interpretation through the episodic reflections and observations of this fascinating philosopher's work.

Is a world without force possible? William Bluhm believes it is, and this book is an impassioned plea for the revolution in moral philosophy that he thinks is necessary to achieve freedom under law without the use of force. Principal among the questions discussed are whether individual freedom can be made compatible with the demands of public order, and whether any notion of lawful authority can be established if there are no natural norms of moral order.

This is a disappointing and depressing book. One does not make such a judgment lightly, nor apply it to a lesser work. There is good reason to expect that an account of the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt, one of the boldest and most thoughtful observers of 20th century political madness, will throw some light on the human condition. But what emerges from Kateb's meticulously detailed analysis of the main themes of Arendt's writings is dense, murky, and obscure. It is (...) not clear whether this result inheres in Arendt's views or Kateb's exegesis; one suspects the former. Since, however, Kateb is frequently at war with his subject's opinions, he is not a disinterested observer. Only a reader who has examined Arendt's views as carefully as Kateb has would be in a position to judge whether he has represented her fairly. (shrink)

Robert Goodin has produced a stimulating, sharp-witted book on decision making in political life, weaving together previously printed and revised articles of his own with new interpretive material. While he takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour of the literature, the line of argument, which proceeds with clarity and vigor, is clearly the author's own. Goodin brings superb, perhaps excessive self-confidence to his task, considering that the empirical questions with which he deals tend to elude firm theoretical categorization. Policy makers, (...) who must deal with ambiguity and compromise, can rarely afford the luxury of philosophical reflection. It is Goodin's self appointed mission to teach them the importance of founding their decisions on sound theory, and he performs it with acuity and panache, although not without some problematic formulations of his own. (shrink)

Sabina Lovibond has produced a book that both requires and rewards close attention. It is a dense, closely argued, highly intelligent, discursive, difficult work, teeming with ideas and allusions, deserving of the greatest respect but at the same time placing the burden of tracing the line of argument squarely on the reader. In the end, admiration for the breadth of the author's scholarship and the acuity of her intellect far outweighs occasional twinges of impatience at the sometimes meandering turns in (...) the discourse. (shrink)

If Michael Walzer's relentlessly expository book can be said to have a dominant theme, it is the theme of domination. How do we achieve a society without domination? Simple equality is impossible; people differ in skill, strength, wisdom, courage, and energy. The root meaning of the egalitarian demand, according to Walzer, is negative. It aims at aristocratic privilege, capitalist wealth, bureaucratic power, and racial and sexual supremacy; in short, at the ability of people to dominate others. It's not the fact (...) that there are rich and poor that generates the egalitarian impulse, he continues, but the fact that the rich grind the faces of the poor, impose their poverty on them, command their deferential behavior. The popular demand for the abolition of social and political differences results, he says, from what aristocrats do to commoners, what office holders do to ordinary citizens, what people with power do to those without it. Behind the vision of equality is the experience of subordination. "No more bowing and scraping, fawning and toadying; no more fearful trembling, no more high and mightiness; no more masters, no more slaves." The modern society in which these putative activities take place is not identified. Surely he cannot mean his own society? (shrink)

In spite of its title, this book is not what one would call a "treatise" on the subject: it is not a systematic exposition of the topics dealt with in this most important part of philosophy. Nowhere in it is found, for example, a detailed discussion of the role played by theories in metaphysics in connection with the proper method and distinctive features of the discipline. This is important, because the author calls his ideas a "theory" and one might ask, (...) is this a new name for the old idea of encompassing in a single concept the totality of what there is and can be, or is this a wholly new approach to metaphysical problems? (shrink)