Homage to Political Philosophy

Subtitled 'the good society from Plato to the present', this book does not simply take a chronological approach, but intersperses detailed treatment of key Western thinkers with analysis of central themes such as men and women, the existence of God, free will and free speech, slavery and race. Assumptions about these topics have changed over time while formulations are historically influenced and contextualised in contemporary life. Politics is seen within the framework of a thinker's metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, and the author applies the same criteria to his own humanistic views. The approach is analytical, enabling readers to grasp and engage with the original arguments put forward and to appreciate how we must urgently recover a vision of the common good, especially as 'the market has replaced justice as the ordering principle of society' (see Anderson review above). Flynn has a very good chapter on humanising the market, identifying five great tensions - with justice, self-realisation, fellow feeling, between private endeavour and the common good, and between power and morality. He sets out an agenda for moral debate, and takes the strong view that our humane ideals define who we and that these can be freely chosen and maintained with integrity. For him, this has also meant criticising excessive moralistic intervention in American foreign policy after having arrived at the conclusion that 'the main role of patriotism is to rationalise militarism.' This is a rigorous and vigorous set of reflections and call to individual political action.