Why do political philosophers shy away from politics? Glen Newey offers a challenging and original critique of liberalism, the dominant political philosophy of our time, tackling such key issues as state legitimacy, value-pluralism, neutrality, the nature of politics, public reason, and morality in politics. Analyzing major liberal theorists, Newey argues that liberalism bypasses politics because it ignores or misunderstands human motivation, and elevates academic systembuilding over political realities of conflict and power.
This article is on political normativity. It urges scepticism about attempts to reduce political normativity to morality. Modern liberalism leaves a question about how far morality can be accommodated by the form of normativity characteristic of politics. The article casts doubt on whether individual moral norms carry over to collective, for example, political, action, and whether the former ‘trump’ other kinds of reasons in politics. It then sketches an alternative view of politics as an irreducibly collective enterprise. Reasons for acting (...) politically, including the understandings on which perceptions of legitimacy rest, are largely artefacts of the political culture and thus only marginally subject to generic conditions of validity: this is true in particular of liberal acceptability-conditions. Thus legitimacy, though not a redundant notion, must be geared to local political norms. (shrink)
Democratic politicians face pressures unknown to the prerogative rulers of the early modern period when toleration was first formulated as a political ideal. These pressures are less often expressed as demands by groups or individuals for the permission of practices they dislike than for their restraint or outright prohibition; tolerant dispositions are less politically clamorous. The executive structure of toleration as a virtue, together with the ‘fact of reasonable pluralism’, make conflicts over toleration peculiarly intractable. Political conflicts are apt to (...) take the form of mutual allegations ofintolerance; indeed, the problem of ‘tolerating the intolerant’, far from being a marginal case, is central to the theory and practice of toleration. Toleration thus exemplifies a category mistake committed in much contemporary political theory, particularly in its contractualist versions: the threshold of the political lies precisely where rational agreement proves impossible. The main prospects for democratic toleration are thus pre-emptive. The main way in which this can happen is by cultivating executive dispositions: in other words, encouraging people to detach themselves from strong evaluative commitments, so that toleration does not become politically contentious to start with. But this involves losses as well as gains. The gains in civil harmony and peace are obvious. The cost for tolerant political actors is alienation from what they have good reason to value. (shrink)
(2006). Gray’s Blues: Pessimism as a Political Project. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 9, The Political Theory of John Gray, pp. 263-284.
This article deals with modus vivendi, toleration and power. On the face of it toleration and modus vivendi are in tension with each other, because of the power condition on toleration: that an agent is tolerant only if they have the power to engage in an alternative, non- or intolerant form of behaviour, and this seems to be absent in modus vivendi. The article argues that the scope of the power condition is unclear, but might be thought much more extensive (...) than usually supposed. This becomes clear when the agent’s thoughts are subjected to a counterfactual test, concerning what would occur in their ideal world. However it is in the nature of ideals that they cannot usually be subject to a counterfactual variation here, since they determine the ideal world’s content. The article concludes that only a commitment to the other party’s freedom for its own sake proves robust in the face of counterfactual idealisation, but that it is questionable whether the dispositions that characterise toleration should be subject to so demanding a test. (shrink)
This paper examines and criticizes the defence of toleration due to John Rawls in Political Liberalism, and similar strategies mobilized in defence of toleration. It argues that the notion of the burdens of judgement, used by Rawls to defend his doctrine of reasonable pluralism, faces incoherence: schematically, either disagreement succumbs to reason, or vice versa. On similar grounds, reasonable disagreement defences of neutrality fail because of a double-mindedness about the relation between private judgements and public reason. This problem arises, it (...) is argued, from an attempt to make private judgements determinative in the formation of political and legal outcomes, even while subjecting the latter?s justification to norms of public reason. Deference to private judgements in political justification tends to countenance sedition, and this applies also to modern liberal attempts such as Rawls?s to ground toleration in private judgements. (shrink)
In this article Glen Newey defends the view that freedom of expression, and specifically free speech, enjoys special status because it is a necessary condition of politics itself. The first political question concerns the terms on which people associate with one another. This requires free speech, because in order to associate, people need to think of themselves as entering into unconstrained agreements and this demands full access to information. He considers different ways in which free speech has been understood and (...) argues that underlying classical liberal defences is a concern to protect the content rather than occasions of speech. He then applies this understanding to toleration. He argues that free speech is prior to toleration, rather than a corollary of it and considers the implications of this view for some recent controversies concerning free speech. (shrink)
(2006). John Gray: A Political Theorist Of and Against Our Times. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 9, The Political Theory of John Gray, pp. 113-115.
A World Without Why collects essays, of which some are new, others already published, on topics that interest Raymond Geuss, including architecture, theology, Marxism, tragedy, ethics and the unity of academic philosophy as a discipline. A theme running through the essays is a critical, or at least skeptical, stance towards the ‘Enlightenment project’ of explanation and rationalisation, familiar from the Frankfurt School. In Geuss, that stance may in the end express, despite everything, a thwarted Kantian hope: that reason, and it (...) alone, can make things make sense. (shrink)
Hobbes is one of the most important figures in the history of ideas and political thought and his book _Leviathan_ is widely recognized as one of the greatest works of political philosophy. In this _GuideBook_ Glen Newey offers a balanced guide to this key text that explores both its historical and philosophical aspects. The author introduces: the relevance of Hobbes' ideas to modern political thought the major interpretations of _Leviathan_ Hobbes' life and the background of _Leviathan_ _The Routledge Philosophy GuideBook (...) to Hobbes and Leviathan_ is the ideal introduction for students who wish to understand more about this important philosopher and this classic work of philosophy. (shrink)
Political disputes over toleration are endemic, while toleration as a political value seems opposed to those of civic equality, neutrality and sometimes democracy. Toleration in Political Conflict sets out to understand toleration as both politically awkward and indispensable. The book exposes the incoherence of Rawlsian reasonable pluralist justifications of toleration, and shows that toleration cannot be fully reconciled with liberal political values. While raison d'état concerns very often overshadow debates over toleration, these debates – for example about terrorism – need (...) not be framed as a conflict between toleration and security. Framing them in this way tends to obscure objectionable behaviour by tolerators themselves, and their reliance on asymmetric power. Glen Newey concludes by sketching a picture of politics as dependent on free speech which, he argues, is entailed by the demands of free association. That in turn suggests that questions of toleration are inescapable within the conditions of politics itself. (shrink)
Hobbes is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of ideas and political thought, and his seminal text Leviathan is widely recognised as one of the greatest works of political philosophy ever written. The Routledge Guidebook to Hobbes’ Leviathan introduces the major themes in Hobbes’ great book and acts as a companion for reading this key work, examining: The context of Hobbes’ work and the background to his writing Each separate part of the text in (...) relation to its goals, meanings and impact The reception the book received when first seen by the world The relevance of Hobbes’ work to modern philosophy, it’s legacy and influence With further reading included throughout, this text follows Hobbes’ original work closely, making it essential reading for all students of philosophy and politics, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work. (shrink)
