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Liberalism has been criticized in recent years for placing too much faith in individual rights and distributive justice. This work argues for a re-interpretation of liberal principles, and sketches a new approach for humanist liberalism.
Property law should expand opportunities for individual and collective self-determination and restrict options of interpersonal domination.
The idea of the university and the idea of liberal education share a family resemblance. However, it is not always explicitly clear what they have in common and what differentiates them. This collection brings together arguments and reflections on the nature of the university and the place of liberal learning in the 21st century. It is divided into two parts. In the first part authors examine the values and ideals that shape our understanding of liberal learning and the university; in the second part authors consider pedagogies informing our practices, asking after what underlying presuppositions, when made explicit, guide our liberal education classrooms in higher education. Unique in its approaches, this volume includes defenses of liberal education’s intrinsic value, the commodification of some of its best ideals, as well as utilitarian defenses that challenge some orthodox conceptions of liberal learning and its justifications. Each in its own right understands liberal learning as essential to the defense of a democratic order. On the pedagogical side, included are essays that defend a view of liberal education from the vantage of STEM subjects, including architecture, as well as those we typically associate with the liberal arts. This volume will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp an understanding of liberal education, but also those seeking to advance their pedagogical ideas about liberal learning. Researchers and students in education, higher education and those interested in the liberal arts and sciences will find this volume a useful addition to their collection.
First published in 1983. The primary argument of this book is that there is a coherent tradition of liberal thinking that extends from L. S. Mill, through liberals like T. H. Green, Bernard Bosanquet, L. T. Hobhouse and John Dewey to John Rawls. The author places Rawls within a longstanding tradition of liberal thinking, while also arguing that Green and Hobhouse are not simply of historical interest but represent genuine and interesting attempts to develop a modern liberal theory. It is argued that modern liberal theory centres on a conception of human nature; that modern liberals have sought to harmonise the pursuit of individuality with participation in social and communal life. Although the book focuses on six modern liberals, the discussion proceeds topically rather than according to author, thus highlighting similarities and disagreements and providing a comprehensive study of modern liberalism.
This book claims that in addition to autonomy, liberal tradition recognizes human flourishing as an ideal of the good life. There are two versions of the liberalism of flourishing: for one the good life consists in the ability of an individual to develop her intellectual and moral capabilities, and for the other the good life is one in which an individual succeeds in materializing her varied human capabilities. Both versions expect the state to create the background conditions for flourishing. Combining the history of ideas with analytical political philosophy, Menachem Mautner finds the roots of the liberalism of flourishing in the works of great philosophers, and argues that for individuals to reach flourishing they need to engage with art. Art provides us with wisdom, insight, critical social and political thinking, and moral education. Thus, a state which practices the liberalism of flourishing must play an active role in funding the creation and dissemination of art. Consequently, the liberalism of flourishing is better equipped than autonomy liberalism to compete with religion in the domains of meaning and over the shape of the regime, the political culture and the law in countries in which liberalism is contested. Political theorists and lawyers will enjoy engaging with this version of liberalism, as will students of social democracy and art policy.
This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in A Theory of Justice but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines—religious, philosophical, and moral—coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls' plans to revise Political Liberalism, which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on A Theory of Justice...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." —Times Literary Supplement
Holmes argues that the aspirations of liberal democracy - including individual liberty, the equal dignity of citizens, and a tolerance for diversity - are best understood in relation to two central themes of classical liberal theory: the psychological motivations of individuals and the necessary constraints on individual passions provided by robust institutions. Paradoxically, Holmes argues, such institutional restraints serve to enable, rather than limit or dilute, effective democracy.
Michael Freeden explores the concept of liberalism, one of the longest-standing and central political theories and ideologies. Combining a variety of approaches, he distinguishes between liberalism as a political movement, as a system of ideas, and as a series of ethical and philosophical principles.
The Demands of Liberal Education analyses and applies contemporary liberal political theory to certain key problems within the field of educational theory. Levinson examines problems centred around determining appropriate educational aims, content and institutional structure and argues that liberal governments should exercise a much greater control over education than they now do. Combining theoretical with empirical research, this book will interest and provoke scholars,policy makers, educators, parents, and all citizens interested in education politics.
One of our most important political theorists pulls the philosophical rug out from under modern liberalism, then tries to place it on a more secure footing. We think of modern liberalism as the novel product of a world reinvented on a secular basis after 1945. In The Theology of Liberalism, one of the country’s most important political theorists argues that we could hardly be more wrong. Eric Nelson contends that the tradition of liberal political philosophy founded by John Rawls is, however unwittingly, the product of ancient theological debates about justice and evil. Once we understand this, he suggests, we can recognize the deep incoherence of various forms of liberal political philosophy that have emerged in Rawls’s wake. Nelson starts by noting that today’s liberal political philosophers treat the unequal distribution of social and natural advantages as morally arbitrary. This arbitrariness, they claim, diminishes our moral responsibility for our actions. Some even argue that we are not morally responsible when our own choices and efforts produce inequalities. In defending such views, Nelson writes, modern liberals have implicitly taken up positions in an age-old debate about whether the nature of the created world is consistent with the justice of God. Strikingly, their commitments diverge sharply from those of their proto-liberal predecessors, who rejected the notion of moral arbitrariness in favor of what was called Pelagianism—the view that beings created and judged by a just God must be capable of freedom and merit. Nelson reconstructs this earlier “liberal” position and shows that Rawls’s philosophy derived from his self-conscious repudiation of Pelagianism. In closing, Nelson sketches a way out of the argumentative maze for liberals who wish to emerge with commitments to freedom and equality intact.