"Under what conditions are obedience and disobedience required or justified? To what or whom is obedience or disobedience owed? What are the differences between authority and power and between legitimate and illegitimate government? What is the relationship between having an obligation and having freedom to act? What are the similarities and differences among political, legal, and moral obligations?..." Originally published in 1972, Professor Flathman discusses these crucial issues in political theory in a lucid and stimulating argument. Though mainly concerned to develop his own modified utilitarian standing point he also reviews both the classical and modern literature from Plato and Hobbes to Hare and Rawls. The treatment is philosophical but it is frequently related to practical issues of civil obedience and disobedience and in particular focuses on the relation between law, obligation and social change.

In this book, first published in 1977, Richard Flathman sets out to provide a systematic understanding and an assessment of individual rights. He pursues the first objective primarily by analysing the salient characteristics of the uses of 'rights' in ordinary language. Establishing, exercising, respecting and violating rights are treated as activities forming a social 'practice'. This practice consists of an interrelated set of rules, norms and beliefs that are generally accepted and acted upon by persons who participate in the practice. Both the form and the content of the practice change substantially over time. The author's analysis of civic individualism casts doubt both on the communitarian conceptions of the proper relationship between the individual and society and on the strongly a- or anti-political individualism (and the right to private property it has emphasised) that has occupied a significant place in political philosophy from Hobbes to Nozick.

In Pluralism and Liberal Democracy one of the country's most distinguished political theorists turns to the task of how best to explain, justify, and encourage the concept, practice, and institutionalization of pluralism. By examining and analyzing the accounts and explanations of four philosophers -- William James, Hannah Arendt, Stuart Hampshire, and Michael Oakeshott -- Richard E. Flathman augments the theories of pluralism most familiar to students and scholars of politics and political theory.

Flathman delves into a number of writings by and about these philosophers, weaving their philosophical theories into the ideology of liberalism. Among the works he studies are James's Some Problems of Philosophy, Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hampshire's Freedom of Mind, and Oakeshott's On Human Conduct.

Flathman finds that pluralism's relation to liberalism has been challenged by the recent emergence of pluralities widely thought to threaten states and societies -- such as separatist and secessionist movements. The tension between the desire for unity and the embrace of diversity has created vigorous disagreement about the nature of pluralism and its relation to liberalism. The philosophers studied here embrace these conflicts and challenges, further invigorating a political concept Flathman regards as a centerpiece of liberalism.