Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity addresses each of the key public policy issues of our techno-future from the perspective of deeply informed and philosophically inclined public intellectuals. Among the issues addressed are the detachment of our idea of justice from any credible foundation; Tocqueville's prescience on how a "cognitive elite" might be the aristocracy to be most feared in our time; robotization and the possibility of being ruled by morally challenged robots; organ markets; the degradation of liberal education by obsessive techno-enthusiasm; biotechnology and biological determinism; the birth dearth and the inevitable erosion of our entitlements; the possibility that our techno-domination is basically an unfolding of the Lockean logic of our foundation; and the future of the free exercise of religion in an aggressively libertarian time. All in all, this book should provoke widespread discussion about the relationship between scientific/technological progress and the one true moral/spiritual progress that takes place over the course of every particular human life.

In this edited collection, Peter Lawler presents a lucid and comprehensive introduction to a diverse set of political issues according to Tocqueville. Democracy and Its Friendly Critics addresses a variety of modern political and social concerns, such as the moral dimension of democracy, the theoretical challenges to democracy in our time, the religious dimension of liberty, and the meaning of work in contemporary American Life. Taking innovative and unexpected approaches toward familiar topics, the essays present engaging insights into a democratic society, and the contributors include some of today's leading figures in political philosophy. No other collection on Tocqueville addresses contemporary American political issues in such a direct and accessible fashion, making this book a valuable resource for the study of political theory in America.

Casablanca is a movie about love and loss, virtue and vice, good and evil, duty and treachery, courage and weakness, friendship and hate. It is a story that ends well, but only because the main characters make a heartbreaking choice. Casablanca is perhaps the most widely viewed motion picture ever made, often finishing on critics' lists second only to Citizen Kane. What accounts for its continuing popularity? What chord does it strike with audiences? What lesson does Casablanca teach Americans about themselves? What influence does popular culture have on public mores? The contributors to Political Philosophy Comes to Rick's take up these questions, finding that Casablanca raises many of the most important issues of political philosophy. Perhaps Casablanca has an enduring quality because it, like political philosophy, raises questions of human life - the nature of love, friendship, courage, honor, responsibility, and justice.

American Political Rhetoric is the only reader for introductory classes in American politics, government, and political communication designed to explore fundamental political principles through examples of political rhetoric ranging from the founding to today. Now in its eighth edition, its selections include the entire political spectrum and contributors range from our nation's founders to contemporary elected public officials, Supreme Court opinions, and representatives of historic movements for social change. The eighth edition includes new selections of recent Supreme Court decisions, including the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, foreign policy, and expanded coverage of individual rights and privileges, including freedom of speech and voting rights. The book is now more useful than ever for students and teachers thanks to a supplementary website available at americanpoliticalrhetoric.com.

For seven seasons, AMC's Mad Men captivated audiences with the story of Don Draper, an advertising executive whose personal and professional successes and failures took viewers on a roller coaster ride through America's tumultuous 1960s. More than just a television show about one of advertising's "bad boys," the series investigates the principles of the American regime, exploring whether or not the American Dream is a sustainable vision of human flourishing and happiness. This collection of essays investigates the show's engagement with the philosophic and political foundations of American democracy.

In this rich collection of essays, editors Dale McConkey and Peter Augustine Lawler explore the contributions that religious faith and morality can make to a civil society. Though the level of religious expression has remained high in the United States, the shift from traditional religious beliefs to a far more individualized style of faith has led many to contend that no faith commitment, collective or personal, should contribute to the vibrancy of a civil democratic society. Challenging those who believe that the private realm is the only appropriate locus of religious belief, the contributors to this volume believe that religion can inform and invigorate the secular institutions of society such as education, economics, and politics. Drawn from a wide variety of religious and moral traditions, these diverse essays show, from many perspectives, the important contribution religion has to make in the public square that is civil society.

Democracy Reconsidered provides an enlightening study of democracy in America's post-modern context. Elizabeth Kaufer Busch and Peter Augustine Lawler explore some of the foundational principles of democracy as they have been borne out in American society. The essays included in this volume examine the lessons that novelists, philosophers, and political theorists have for democratic societies as they progress towards postmodern skepticism or even disbelief in the absolute principles that form the foundation of democracies. Led by the provocative observations of Lawler, a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, the first section lays out the predicament caused by the gravitation of democracy towards a disbelief in absolute truth, leading to a 'crisis of self-evidence.' The second section searches for tools that one might use to restore health to the individual and community within American democracy, including spiritual faith, creative autonomy, and philosophic inquiry. The third section addresses the supposed 'crisis in liberal education' caused by our 'crisis of self-evidence.' Included essays explore the extent to which the professed aims of liberal education may be at odds with the cultivation of dutiful citizens. The book closes by considering some of the political consequences of employing content-less freedom as the primary standard by which human behaviour is judged.

Democracy Reconsidered provides an enlightening study of democracy in America's post-modern context. Elizabeth Kaufer Busch and Peter Augustine Lawler explore some of the foundational principles of democracy as they have been borne out in American society. The essays included in this volume examine the lessons that novelists, philosophers, and political theorists have for democratic societies as they progress towards postmodern skepticism or even disbelief in the absolute principles that form the foundation of democracies. Led by the provocative observations of Lawler, a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, the first section lays out the predicament caused by the gravitation of democracy towards a disbelief in absolute truth, leading to a "crisis of self-evidence." The second section searches for tools that one might use to restore health to the individual and community within American democracy, including spiritual faith, creative autonomy, and philosophic inquiry. The third section addresses the supposed "crisis in liberal education" caused by our "crisis of self-evidence." Included essays explore the extent to which the professed aims of liberal education may be at odds with the cultivation of dutiful citizens. The book closes by considering some of the political consequences of employing content-less freedom as the primary standard by which human behaviour is judged.

American Political Rhetoric is the only reader for introductory classes in American politics, government, and political communication designed to explore fundamental political principles through examples of political rhetoric ranging from the founding to today. Now in its eighth edition, its selections include the entire political spectrum and contributors range from our nation's founders to contemporary elected public officials, Supreme Court opinions, and representatives of historic movements for social change. The eighth edition includes new selections of recent Supreme Court decisions, including the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, foreign policy, and expanded coverage of individual rights and privileges, including freedom of speech and voting rights. The book is now more useful than ever for students and teachers thanks to a supplementary website available at americanpoliticalrhetoric.com.

This volume of essays explores the bases and significant aspects of the thought of contemporary French philosopher, historian of ideas, and novelist Chantal Delsol. A member of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, she is well known in France as a political analyst and cultural diagnostician. This collection is the first book-length treatment of her thought available in English, bringing together studies that analyze her work. In between, essays present her remarkable portrait of human beings increasingly characteristic of Western societies, as well as her defense of the human person rightly understood. An exposition of the virtues of her conception of the family, as well as her analysis of contemporary "matriarchy," complements those treatments. The authors highlight her unique mode of cultural analysis, together with her stout defense of genuine political life. The volume also includes translations of two chapters of her fundamental work of philosophical anthropology, Qu'est-ce que l'homme?, appearing here for the first time in English. A thoughtful examination of Delsol's work, this book provides new resources to those studying this French philosopher and author.

Communitarianism is currently the subject of much interest and scrutiny by both liberals and conservatives. In Community and Tradition, eight distinguished scholars articulate the clearest statement to date of the conservative vision of community. In contrast to the progressive model of community, which emphasizes secular civil theologies, government, participatory democracy, and utilitarian moralities, the contributors to this volume identify and locate the roots of friendship and common purpose in tradition, intermediate associations, local autonomy, and religious belief. Not only do the contributors renew and refine the conservative understanding of community, but they also express their belief that the liberal version of community needs to be challenged. This volume is essential reading for all political theorists who study the balance between rights and responsibilities within the context of the community.

In this edited collection, Peter Lawler presents a lucid and comprehensive introduction to a diverse set of political issues according to Tocqueville. Democracy and Its Friendly Critics addresses a variety of modern political and social concerns, such as the moral dimension of democracy, the theoretical challenges to democracy in our time, the religious dimension of liberty, and the meaning of work in contemporary American Life. Taking innovative and unexpected approaches toward familiar topics, the essays present engaging insights into a democratic society, and the contributors include some of today's leading figures in political philosophy. No other collection on Tocqueville addresses contemporary American political issues in such a direct and accessible fashion, making this book a valuable resource for the study of political theory in America.

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville famously called for 'a new political science' that could address the problems and possibilities of a 'world itself quite new.' For Tocqueville, the democratic world needed not just a new political science but also new arts of statesmanship and leadership. In this volume, Brian Danoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr., have brought together a diverse set of essays revealing that Tocqueville's understanding of democratic statesmanship remains highly relevant today. The first chapter of the book is a new translation of Tocqueville's 1852 address to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which Tocqueville offers a profound exploration of the relationship between theory and practice, and between statesmanship and political philosophy. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between Tocqueville's ideas on statesmanship, on the one hand, and the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, the Puritans, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, Oakeshott, Willa Cather, and the Second Vatican Council, on the other. Timely and provocative, these essays show the relevance of Tocqueville's theory of statesmanship for thinking about such contemporary issues as the effects of NGOs on civic life, the powers of the American presidency, the place of the jury in a democratic polity, the role of religion in public life, the future of democracy in Europe, and the proper balance between liberalism and realism in foreign policy.

Magnanimity and Statesmanship is a collection of papers on the virtue of Aristotelian magnanimity (or greatness of soul) and its relationship to the history of political philosophy and to the art of statesmanship. Aristotle's account of the "great-souled man" may seem somewhat alien to the sensibilities of a modern democracy. There is, after all, an inegalitarian element in the great-souled man's confidence in his moral excellence and hence in his superior worthiness to hold public office. Nevertheless, even modern democratic thinkers admit that democracy needs, at least in certain critical phases in its development, political leaders who far excel their fellow citizens in virtue and wisdom. This book, then, traces the path of magnanimity in the history of political philosophy and examines certain statesmen in light of this virtue, all with a view to addressing the following questions: What is magnanimity, and what is its relationship to political life? Is magnanimity compatible with Christianity, or with the modern commitment to equality? Does modernity still stand in need of such a virtue? Can magnanimity flourish under modern conditions? Are there examples of political leaders whose lives exemplify this virtue and the study of whose political conduct can deepen our understanding of it?

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. They detail the life and rather sad times of the American university, its relationship to democracy, and the place of the liberal arts within it. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. But they also point toward a renewal of the university by redirecting it toward those things that resist the passions of the moment, or the pull of mere utility. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity addresses each of the key public policy issues of our techno-future from the perspective of deeply informed and philosophically inclined public intellectuals. Among the issues addressed are the detachment of our idea of justice from any credible foundation; Tocqueville's prescience on how a "cognitive elite" might be the aristocracy to be most feared in our time; robotization and the possibility of being ruled by morally challenged robots; organ markets; the degradation of liberal education by obsessive techno-enthusiasm; biotechnology and biological determinism; the birth dearth and the inevitable erosion of our entitlements; the possibility that our techno-domination is basically an unfolding of the Lockean logic of our foundation; and the future of the free exercise of religion in an aggressively libertarian time. All in all, this book should provoke widespread discussion about the relationship between scientific/technological progress and the one true moral/spiritual progress that takes place over the course of every particular human life.

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville famously called for 'a new political science' that could address the problems and possibilities of a 'world itself quite new.' For Tocqueville, the democratic world needed not just a new political science but also new arts of statesmanship and leadership. In this volume, Brian Danoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr., have brought together a diverse set of essays revealing that Tocqueville's understanding of democratic statesmanship remains highly relevant today. The first chapter of the book is a new translation of Tocqueville's 1852 address to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which Tocqueville offers a profound exploration of the relationship between theory and practice, and between statesmanship and political philosophy. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between Tocqueville's ideas on statesmanship, on the one hand, and the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, the Puritans, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, Oakeshott, Willa Cather, and the Second Vatican Council, on the other. Timely and provocative, these essays show the relevance of Tocqueville's theory of statesmanship for thinking about such contemporary issues as the effects of NGOs on civic life, the powers of the American presidency, the place of the jury in a democratic polity, the role of religion in public life, the future of democracy in Europe, and the proper balance between liberalism and realism in foreign policy.

Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism canvasses an array of thinkers from the past to the present as it examines fundamental political, philosophical, ethical, economic, anthropological, and scientific aspects of the ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism. Early chapters focus on classical thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith, while later chapters provide analyses of present-day classical liberals, focusing especially on F.A. Hayek, Thomas Sowell, and Larry Arnhart, the most prominent advocates of 'contemporary' classical liberalism. Thematically, the volume falls into three parts. Part I examines foundational matters, arguing that Darwinism and classical liberalism hold incompatible visions of morality, human nature, and individual autonomy. This section also contends that the free market's spontaneous order is fully compatible with a teleological (or non-Darwinian) view of the universe. Part II turns to contemporary applications, contending that Darwinism and classical liberalism are at odds in their views of (or implications about) limited government, vital religion, economic freedom, and the traditional family. This section also argues that, since its inception, Darwinism has attenuated core tenets and values of classical liberalism and Western civilization. Part III of the volume contains alternative views to those in the first two parts, adding critical diversity to the book. Respectively, these chapters hold that Darwinian evolution simply has little to say about classical liberalism; an evolutionary account of human volition is fully compatible with the individual choice presupposed in classical liberalism; and evolutionary naturalism, unlike religious alternatives, provides a strong foundation for freedom, morality, and the traditional family.

Postmodernism Rightly Understood is a dramatic return to realism-a poetic attempt to attain a true understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the postmodern predicament. Prominent political theorist Peter Augustine Lawler reflects on the flaws of postmodern thought, the futility of pragmatism, and the spiritual emptiness of existentialism. Lawler examines postmodernism by interpreting the writings of five respected and best selling American authors-Francis Fukuyama, Richard Rorty, Allan Bloom, Walker Percy, and Christopher Lasch. Lawler explains why the alternatives available in our time are either a "soulless niceness," which Fukuyama, Rorty, and Bloom described as the result of modern success, or a postmodern moral responsibility that accompanies love in the ruins, as articulated by Percy and Lasch. This is a fresh and compelling look at the crisis of the human soul and intellect accompanied by the onset of postmodernity.

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics. These tensions are explored through the works of such eminent thinkers as Aristotle, Augustine, and Tocqueville, but the contributors engage a wide variety of texts from popular culture, American literature Flannery O'Connor receives notable attention and social theory to create a remarkably comprehensive, if far from harmonious, introduction to political philosphy today."

Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them.

This is the third and final volume in the series on American political thought edited by Ronald J. Pestritto and Thomas G. West. The book addresses how the major themes in American political thought_identified in the first two books of the series_have played out in the world of modern American politics. The first volume focused on the founding era, and examined the prevalence of social-compact theory among the founders and implications of that theory for the design of American institutions. The second volume examined the major challenges that nineteenth-century thought posed to the political ideas of the founding, and suggested that these challenges created tensions that would significantly affect the development of American politics in the twentieth century and beyond. In Modern America and the Legacy of the Founding, the authors address these fundamental tensions: how does modern America resolve the inherent conflict between the original constitutional order and the challenges posed by modern liberalism? The authors look at the contemporary effects of this fundamental tension on questions of foreign policy and domestic policy, and on questions of our national political institutions and the ideas that shape them today.

This is the third and final volume in the series on American political thought edited by Ronald J. Pestritto and Thomas G. West. The book addresses how the major themes in American political thought-identified in the first two books of the series-have played out in the world of modern American politics. The first volume focused on the founding era, and examined the prevalence of social-compact theory among the founders and implications of that theory for the design of American institutions. The second volume examined the major challenges that nineteenth-century thought posed to the political ideas of the founding, and suggested that these challenges created tensions that would significantly affect the development of American politics in the twentieth century and beyond. In Modern America and the Legacy of the Founding, the authors address these fundamental tensions: how does modern America resolve the inherent conflict between the original constitutional order and the challenges posed by modern liberalism? The authors look at the contemporary effects of this fundamental tension on questions of foreign policy and domestic policy, and on questions of our national political institutions and the ideas that shape them today.

Casablanca is a movie about love and loss, virtue and vice, good and evil, duty and treachery, courage and weakness, friendship and hate. It is a story that ends well, but only because the main characters make a heartbreaking choice. Casablanca is perhaps the most widely viewed motion picture ever made, often finishing on critics' lists second only to Citizen Kane. What accounts for its continuing popularity? What chord does it strike with audiences? What lesson does Casablanca teach Americans about themselves? What influence does popular culture have on public mores? The contributors to Political Philosophy Comes to Rick's take up these questions, finding that Casablanca raises many of the most important issues of political philosophy. Perhaps Casablanca has an enduring quality because it, like political philosophy, raises questions of human life - the nature of love, friendship, courage, honor, responsibility, and justice.

Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism canvasses an array of thinkers from the past to the present as it examines fundamental political, philosophical, ethical, economic, anthropological, and scientific aspects of the ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism. Early chapters focus on classical thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith, while later chapters provide analyses of present-day classical liberals, focusing especially on F.A. Hayek, Thomas Sowell, and Larry Arnhart, the most prominent advocates of 'contemporary' classical liberalism. Thematically, the volume falls into three parts. Part I examines foundational matters, arguing that Darwinism and classical liberalism hold incompatible visions of morality, human nature, and individual autonomy. This section also contends that the free market's spontaneous order is fully compatible with a teleological (or non-Darwinian) view of the universe. Part II turns to contemporary applications, contending that Darwinism and classical liberalism are at odds in their views of (or implications about) limited government, vital religion, economic freedom, and the traditional family. This section also argues that, since its inception, Darwinism has attenuated core tenets and values of classical liberalism and Western civilization. Part III of the volume contains alternative views to those in the first two parts, adding critical diversity to the book. Respectively, these chapters hold that Darwinian evolution simply has little to say about classical liberalism; an evolutionary account of human volition is fully compatible with the individual choice presupposed in classical liberalism; and evolutionary naturalism, unlike religious alternatives, provides a strong foundation for freedom, morality, and the traditional family.