Review – Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought
While Boisen and Murray do not quite meet the aims they set themselves, their edited volume is a worthy and frequently suggestive contribution to modern political theory.
Review – Liberal Realism: a Realist Theory of Liberal Politics
An engaging, perceptive and well-judged contribution which will give even those who disagree with the realist critique a reason to reflect on their own principles.
Student Book Features: Anarchist Political Theory
The arguments against politics and for anarchy presented in these two recently re-issued books are problematic. Nonetheless they cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Review – Modernism and Totalitarianism
Shorten’s case for considering totalitarianism a modern phenomenon is scholarly in the best sense, providing an insightful overview of the evidence and drawing a qualified conclusion.
Review – Constructivism in Practical Philosophy
In political theory, constructivism is probably best known from the work of John Rawls. The twelve essays included in Lenman and Shemmer’s new book show how far this provocative doctrine has been developed in recent years.
Review – Conscience: A Very Short Introduction
Paul Strohm’s ‘Conscience’ is at once an accessible, thought-provoking and often entertaining introduction to a controversial topic – a tour from the historic origins of the term right through to the present day.
Review – Beyond Consequentialism
Consequentialism is at once a provocative and problematic moral doctrine. Paul Hurley exposes the confusions and equivocations in its foundational assumptions.
Review – Foundations of Freedom
Simon R. Clarke suggests that whatever our present convictions about the value of freedom, we have good reason to keep debating its uses and abuses. For that, this book deserves high praise.
Student Book Features: Four Ways into Political Philosophy
Buying a good textbook to help navigate any subject is essential. Each of the texts discussed here brings students to the discipline via a different route.
Review – The Philosophy of Sociality
Raimo Tuomela explicates the concept of “us” and what it means to act as group. What Tuomela does in this book is to examine an old idea and reveal what we understood by it all along.
