If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich?
- ISBN-10
- 0674029666
- ISBN-13
- 9780674029668
- Category
- Philosophy
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2001-09-30
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Author
- G. A. Cohen
Description
This book presents G. A. Cohen's Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1996. Focusing on Marxism and Rawlsian liberalism, Cohen draws a connection between these thought systems and the choices that shape a person's life. In the case of Marxism, the relevant life is his own: a communist upbringing in the 1940s in Montreal, which induced a belief in a strongly socialist egalitarian doctrine. The narrative of Cohen's reckoning with that inheritance develops through a series of sophisticated engagements with the central questions of social and political philosophy. In the case of Rawlsian doctrine, Cohen looks to people's lives in general. He argues that egalitarian justice is not only, as Rawlsian liberalism teaches, a matter of rules that define the structure of society, but also a matter of personal attitude and choice. Personal attitude and choice are, moreover, the stuff of which social structure itself is made. Those truths have not informed political philosophy as much as they should, and Cohen's focus on them brings political philosophy closer to moral philosophy, and to the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition, than it has recently been.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
By Karen WarrenWijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .
-
Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
By Karen Casey7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.
-
Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
By Todd May28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...
-
Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
By Todd RyanBayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.
-
Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
By John Coakley, Jennifer ToddHowever, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.
-
The Philosopher's Way
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.
-
Swimmer in a Dark Sea
By Pierce TimberlakeTake a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.
-
Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady"This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.
-
Ecological Feminism
By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-HoweThe essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...
-
Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
By Karen Green6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...