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This book leads us through the social processes by which shock incites terror, terror invites war, war invokes emergency, and emergency supports unchecked power. It then reveals how the domestic political culture created by the Cold War has driven these developments forward since 9/11, contending that our failure to acknowledge that this Cold War continues today is precisely what makes it so dangerous. The author argues that the mantra of our time—“everything changed on 9/11!”—is false and pernicious. By contrast, this book provides an account of long-term transformations in the citizen's experience of war, the constitution of political powers, and public uses of communication, and from that historical basis explains how a convergence of these social facts became the pretext for unprecedented opportunism and irresponsibility after 9/11. Where others have observed that our rights are under attack, the author digs deeper and finds that, today, “government by the people” itself is at risk. With historical and philosophical insight, this is a diagnosis of the American political scene that at once makes clear the new position of the citizen and the necessity for active citizenship if democracy is to endure.

This book provides a provocative and original analysis of the intellectual sources of today's powerful judiciary, arguing that Montesquieu, in his Spirit of the Laws, first articulated a new conception of the separation of powers and of strong but subtle courts. Montesquieu instructed statesmen and judges to “cloak power” by placing the robed power at the center of politics, while concealing judges behind citizen juries and subtle reforms. Tracing Montesquieu's conception of judicial power through Blackstone, Hamilton, and Tocqueville, the book shows how it led to the prominence of judges, courts, and lawyers in America today. But it places the blame for contemporary judicial activism squarely at the feet of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his jurisprudential revolution—which it is argued is the source of the now-prevalent view that judging is merely political. To address this crisis, the book argues for a rediscovery of an independent judiciary-one that blends prudence and natural law with common law and that observes the moderate jurisprudence of Montesquieu and Blackstone, balancing abstract principles with realistic views of human nature and institutions. It also advocates for a return to the complex constitutionalism of the American founders and Tocqueville and for judges who understand their responsibility to elevate citizens above individualism, instructing them in law and right. Such judicial statesmanship, moderating democracy's excesses, the book explains, differs from an activism that favors isolated individuals and progressive policies over civic duties, communal principles, and constitutional tradition.

For contemporary democratic theory, political judgment is conceptualized wholly in terms of the adjudication of equally rational yet incommensurable value conflicts in the absence of a shared substantive idea of the good. Taking up the unfinished work of Hannah Arendt on judgment, this book argues for a practice of judging politically that is focused less on questions of validity and more on democratic practices of world-building and the creation of new objects of judgment in a global context characterized by widespread value pluralism.

For thousands of years, critics have attacked rhetoric and the actual practice of politics as unprincipled, insincere, and manipulative. In Ethics and the Orator, the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition is offered as a rejoinder to these critics of rhetoric and politics. The book argues that the Ciceronian tradition is based on practical or “rhetorical” politics, rather than on idealistic visions of a politics-that-never-was—a response that is ethically sound, if not altogether morally pure. The study is distinct from other works on political morality in that it turns to Cicero, not Aristotle, as the progenitor of an ethical rhetorical perspective. Contrary to many, if not most, studies of Cicero since the mid-nineteenth century, which have either attacked him as morally indifferent or have only taken his persuasive ends seriously (setting his moral concerns to the side), Ethics and the Orator demonstrates how Cicero presents his ideal orator as exemplary not only in his ability to persuade, but in his capacity as an ethical person. The book demonstrates that Ciceronian values—balancing the moral and the useful, prudential reasoning, and decorum—are not particular only to the philosopher, but are distinctive of a broader Ciceronian rhetorical tradition that runs through the history of Western political thought post-Cicero, including the writings of Quintilian, John of Salisbury, Justus Lipsius, Edmund Burke, the authors of The Federalist, and John Stuart Mill.

Hobbes’s Kingdom of Light is a wide-ranging exploration of Hobbes’s thought. The book delves into Hobbes’s critique of the classical tradition, his natural philosophy, and his critique of religion before turning to his more familiar political philosophy. By considering neglected aspects of Hobbes’s thought as well as its more famous features, the book brings out the breadth and complexity of Hobbes’s revolutionary war against the “Kingdom of Darkness.” Hobbes was engaged in a struggle on multiple fronts against forces, both philosophic and religious, that he thought had long distorted philosophy and destroyed the prospects of a lasting peace in politics. By exploring the twists and turns of Hobbes’s own arguments, not only in his famous Leviathan but throughout his corpus, the book uncovers the details of Hobbes’s critique of an older outlook, rooted in classical philosophy and Christian theology, as well as the key features of the new outlook—the “Kingdom of Light”—that Hobbes sought to put in its place. Hobbes’s venture helped to prepare the way for the later emergence of modern liberalism and modern secularism. The close examination and careful evaluation of that venture sheds new light on the origins of principles and movements that are at once ascendant and beleaguered today.

Leo Strauss was one of the preeminent political philosophers of the twentieth century. Although most of his work took the form of investigations in the history of political philosophy, his intentions were not simply those of a historian of ideas. His chief goal was the restoration of political philosophy as a meaningful, even urgent enterprise. To that end, he delivered stinging critiques of two modern intellectual movements, positivism and historicism, that seemed to make political philosophy no longer possible. His was an effort to reestablish rationalism by showing that the death spiral of philosophy in modern times was a failure not of philosophic rationalism as such, but rather of modern philosophy. That rationalism had at its center what Straus called the “problem of political philosophy,” the solutions to which constituted the history of political philosophy. His inquiries led to the recovery of the classical philosophy of the Socratic tradition, which Strauss saw as a rejoinder to proclamations of the end of philosophy by Nietzsche and Heidegger. The exploration of the several dimensions of “the problem of political philosophy” as Strauss understood it,is the core of this book. That leads to the consideration of such matters as his debts to Husserl, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, his notion of political philosophy as “first philosophy,” the difference between the ancients and moderns, the theological-political problem that he pronounced central to his work, and his contention that liberal democracy is the best regime for our time.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes: patriots who have willingly put their lives at risk for this country and, especially, its principles. And this is even more remarkable given that the United States is a country founded on the principles of equality and democracy that encourage individuality and autonomy far more readily than public spiritedness and self-sacrifice. This book is a pithy and provocative essay on precisely this paradox. How is patriotism inculcated in a system that, some argue, is founded on self-interest? By guiding the reader through the history and philosophy of patriotism in a republic, from the ancient Greeks through contemporary life, the book considers the unique nature of patriotism in the United States and its precarious state. It argues that while both public education and the influence of religion once helped to foster a public-minded citizenry, the very idea of patriotism is currently under attack. The book finds the best answers to his questions in the thought and words of Abraham Lincoln, who understood perhaps better than anyone what the principles of democracy meant and what price adhering to them may exact. The graves at Arlington and Gettysburg and Omaha Beach in Normandy bear witness to the fact that self-interested individuals can become patriots.

This book brings together a diverse group of contributors to examine the ways in which evolutionary theory and biological research are increasingly informing analyses of political behavior. Focusing on the theoretical, methodological, and empirical frameworks of a variety of biological approaches to political attitudes and preferences, the authors consider a wide range of topics, including the comparative basis of political behavior, the utility of formal modeling informed by evolutionary theory, the genetic bases of attitudes and behaviors, psychophysiological methods and research, and the wealth of insight generated by recent research on the human brain. Through this approach, the book reveals the biological bases of many previously unexplained variances within the extant models of political behavior.

Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws is famous for overtly associating despotism with Asia and the Middle East and not with Europe. A scholar on this basis might be inclined to term Montesquieu an Orientalist, one who gazes at exotic foreign cultures in order to exert control over these distant peoples in both thought and in reality. Sullivan argues, however, that Montesquieu’s great work, contrary to first impressions, actually implicates Europe itself with despotism. Specifically, the Frenchman reveals that many of Europe’s greatest philosophical and religious ideas are themselves despotic and have inspired cruel and violent practices on the continent and beyond. Indeed, when Montesquieu uses the formulation “idées despotiques” in the work, he refers to the deplorable punishments that such ideas inspire. In some cases, hoary philosophical authorities such as Plato and Aristotle articulate and advocate for such ideas. Remaining ensconced in revered sources, they can wait for centuries to be rediscovered and revived. In other cases, Christians have promulgated ideas that induce human beings to commit earthly outrages for the sake of heavenly salvation. More recently, Machiavelli and Hobbes have introduced terrifying abuses in their attempts to correct those of their predecessors. These despotic ideas possess both longevity and geographical range, and therefore remain a constant threat. Montesquieu seeks to foster in the readers of his masterwork a repugnance for these despotic ideas so that future generations might be relieved of their vicious influence.

We love our opinions and resist efforts by others to have us reconsider, let alone change, what we are pleased to treat as settled truths. Both philosophers and far-sighted political actors have long understood this about their intended audiences and have adjusted their speech accordingly. To the extent that they mean to convey unsettling thoughts, writers may resort to camouflage and concealment. Rather than shock their publics by direct confrontation, they fall back on various devices by which they would insinuate their message without raising alarm. This book is premised on the notion that this camouflage is best detected by paying attention to the obvious and by keeping our eyes wide open. Its essays are experiments testing whether an admittedly naïve reading can yield a good understanding of what some thinkers had in view when trying to stir their audiences to better, second thoughts. These thinkers are a diverse lot, to be sure—Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Gibbon, Judah Halevi, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Moses Maimonides, and Alexis de Tocqueville—but resemble one another in taking up the challenge of artfully challenging others.

Is it more dangerous to call something evil or not to? This fundamental question deeply divides those who fear that the term oversimplifies grave problems and those who worry that, to effectively address such issues as terrorism and genocide, we must first acknowledge them as evil. Recognizing that the way we approach this dilemma can significantly affect both the harm we suffer and the suffering we inflict, a group of contributors engages in the debate with this series of essays. Drawing on Western conceptions of evil from the Middle Ages to the present, these pieces demonstrate that, while it may not be possible to definitively settle moral questions, we are still able—and in fact are obligated—to make moral arguments and judgments. Using a wide variety of approaches, the authors raise tough questions: Why is so much evil perpetrated in the name of good? Could evil ever be eradicated? How can liberal democratic politics help us strike a balance between the need to pass judgment and the need to remain tolerant? Their answers exemplify how the sometimes rarefied worlds of political theory, philosophy, theology, and history can illuminate pressing contemporary concerns.

The role of the fool is to provoke the powerful to question their convictions, preferably while avoiding a beating. Fools accomplish this not by hectoring their audience, but by broaching sensitive topics indirectly, often disguising their message in a joke or a tale. Writers and thinkers throughout history have adopted the fool's approach, and here the book turns to six of them — Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Robert Burton, Pierre Bayle, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon — to elucidate the strategies these men employed to persuade the heedless, the zealous, and the overly confident to pause and reconsider. As this book makes plain, all these men lived through periods marked by fanaticism, particularly with regard to religion and its relation to the state. In such a troubled context, advocating on behalf of skepticism and against tyranny could easily lead to censure, or even, as in More's case, execution. And so, the book reveals, these serious thinkers relied on humor to move their readers toward a more reasoned understanding of the world and our place in it. At once erudite and entertaining, this book is an eloquently thought-provoking look at the lives and writings of these masterly authors.

Plato’s dialogues are often read as offering biting criticisms of Athens’s democratic authorities, as efforts to supplant those authorities with philosophical authority, and as subjugating desire, imagination, and sense perception to that philosophical authority. On that interpretative approach, Plato’s evident artistry as poet and dramatist is seen as an instrument in the service of the rationalism and idealism of his dialogues, and of their rule of truth. With particular focus on the Republic, this book, by contrast, foregrounds Plato’s artistry and poetry to bring to appearance how the philosophy of the Republic depends on, draws on, and incapacitates desire, persuasion, and the senses, and does so for the sake of justice. Reading the Republic with and against Socrates’ treatment of mimetic poetry in Republic 10, and alongside other dialogues, including Phaedrus, Symposium, and Theaetetus, the book argues that rather than endorsing and enforcing fixed hierarchies in knowledge and politics, Plato’s texts offer an education in ethical and political self-governance with a view to reimagining democratic authority.

It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as its guide Thomas Paine's subversive view that “Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,” this book challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making—and not just a pragmatic second choice when direct democracy is not possible. As the author shows, the idea that representation is incompatible with democracy stems from our modern concept of sovereignty, which identifies politics with a decision maker's direct physical presence and the immediate act of the will. The author goes on to contend that a democratic theory of representation can and should go beyond these identifications. Political representation, she demonstrates, is ultimately grounded in a continuum of influence and power created by political judgment, as well as the way presence through ideas and speech links society with representative institutions. Integrating the ideas of such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, Paine, and the Marquis de Condorcet with her own, the author constructs an alternative vision of democracy.

Whereas human beings have their first birth in the beginning of their bodily existence, only their second birth, in which their political existence and their relation to a government begin, makes them truly or eminently human. But while the origin of political existence is usually equated with the formation of communities, the present book utilizes the mythical, philosophical, religious and political thought cultivated in the European, American, Arab, and Chinese civilizations to identify the political dimension of human beings in Gestalten of power that render them political beings prior to their life in communities. These Gestalten include number, time, thought, Eros, the cosmological manifestation of the political that has its start in the body, the political effort to make all power a civilizing power, and the self-perception of human beings as “subjects to government” who, without altering the political mode of their existence, can set up a government over themselves as individuals in the mode of self-rule or self-control. Thus, human beings erect the work of the political world, which is their own creation, in a world that they have not themselves created.

Genealogies of secularity have long depicted the secular project as one of self-deification – humans attack God’s authority only to usurp God’s place. Against these narratives, this book demonstrates that secularization is not tantamount to self-deification. The secular project is a project of human empowerment. Yet scholars have misunderstood the sources from which secular empowerment derives, and the kinds of strength to which it aspires. Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Jean-Jacques understand that, if humans want to rule themselves, they must acknowledge their limitations. Thus, these theorists chasten human pretension to enhance human power. To craft this alternative portrait of secular subjectivity, the book reconstructs the tradition of the non-Augustinian critique of pride, offering a detailed analysis of the place of modesty and humility, pride and self-love, in early modern philosophy. Challenging the familiar equation of the secular subject with the sovereign subject, this book helps to reframe contemporary debates about secularism, religion, and politics.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1996-1998) was an unprecedented step in developing an institution of transitional justice that incorporated emotional responses to mass violence within the context of victim testimony. However, it was unable to recognize the significance of anger in a clear way. The obstacles it revealed in its engagement with anger were reminiscent of debates within the history of political thought on the relationship between anger and justice. Two of the most provocative philosophical positions on this question, that of Adam Smith and Hannah Arendt, are assessed in order to understand the fears surrounding the expression of anger in politics and the costs of its exclusion. The book argues that the expression of anger is vital to the success of transitional justice processes because it can reveal the perceptions of the state, including the emerging political order, of those who had previously been excluded and the obstacles to their full participation in the new society. It also reveals the limits of political life altogether. Most importantly, an engagement with anger can contribute to the development of trust among citizens through the practice of mutual risk.

This is the first book length study in English of the philosophic teaching of Xenophon's masterwork, showing the Memorabilia to be an essential, if deeply defensive, guide to understanding the Socratic way of life in its fulfillment of the virtue of justice. The shorter first part of the book analyzes Xenophon's highly ironic defense of Socrates against the charges of criminal injustice upon which he was convicted and executed (not believing in the city's gods, and corrupting the young). The longer second part analyzes Xenophon's more elaborately playful account of how Socrates as the citizen-philosopher was positively just, in the sense of helping, in multifarious ways, a wide range of people— citizens and foreigners, friends and enemies, young and old, male and female—even as, and precisely because, Socrates as the founder of political philosophy never ceased raising and pursuing in dialogue answers to the questions: “What is piety, what is impiety?”; “What is noble, what is shameful?”; “What is just, what is unjust?”; “What is moderation, what is madness?”; “What is courage, what is cowardice?”; “What is a city; what is a statesman; what is rule of human beings; what is a skilled ruler of human beings?”

Teachers of the People returns to the moment in history when “the people” first appeared on the stage of modern European politics. That moment—the era just before and after the French Revolution—led many major thinkers to celebrate the dawning of a new epoch in the history of mankind. Yet these same thinkers also worried intensely about the people’s seemingly evident lack of political knowledge, experience, and judgment. The book shows how their reformist and progressive sentiments were often undercut by a deep skepticism concerning the political capacity of ordinary people. Differences aside, Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville, and Mill all thought that “the people” needed to be restrained, educated, and guided—by specific laws and institutions, and by a skilled political elite. The result, the book argues, was less the taming of democracy’s wilder impulses than a pervasive paternalism culminating in new forms of the tutorial state. Ironically, the book argues, it is the reliance upon the distinction between “teachers” and “taught” in the work of these theorists that generates civic passivity and ignorance. This, in turn, creates conditions favorable to the emergence of an undemocratic and illiberal populism.

The Spirit of the Laws—Montesquieu's huge, complex, and enormously influential work—is considered one of the central texts of the Enlightenment, laying the foundation for the liberally democratic political regimes that were to embody its values. This book argues that the inherently theological project of Enlightenment liberalism is made more clearly—and more consequentially—in Spirit than in any other work. It shows how Montesquieu believed that rationalism, through the influence of liberal institutions and the spread of commercial culture, would secularize human affairs. At the same time, the book uncovers his views about the origins of humanity.