POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface vi

Introduction vii
Acknowledgements xi
Using this book xii

Political Philosophy A–Z 1

Bibliography 165
 Series Editor’s Preface

Political philosophy is one of those areas of philosophy that

have a foot in theory and one also firmly placed in the prac-
tice of social life. Although much of the discipline can be tech-
nical and complex, so is living in society. Understanding the
principles that lie behind society and how it operates is clearly
not going to be a simple matter, and philosophy deepens the
issue even further by considering the possibility of a whole
range of explanations for political phenomena. In this context
theoretical questions such as who has the right to govern,
what is democracy and how can justice be made the principle
of government are raised as part and parcel of ordinary polit-
ical debate. We may think we know how to respond to these
questions, yet that is often because we are operating firmly
within a particular political context and do not pay sufficient
attention to the range of different theories and viewpoints that
are available to us. Before we can understand the nature of
anything in politics we need to have a grasp of the wide range
of contexts in which political ideas function, and how they are
used differently depending upon the ideological framework of
the participants. In this book Jon Pike has explored a variety
of the most significant concepts in political philosophy and the
intention is to provide readers with a helpful range of expla-
nations of the discipline’s basic ideas and issues.

Oliver Leaman
 Introduction

Political philosophy is one of the most widely taught branches

of philosophy, perhaps because it seems to be of direct and
immediate importance. Because it is political, political
philosophy doesn’t leave things just where they are (in the way
that, for example, linguistic analysis does). At university level,
philosophy is often studied alongside other disciplines, rather
than as a single honours course – and here political philoso-
phy seems to fit well, from the traditional Oxford model of
Politics, Philosophy and Economics to joint honours degrees
around the world. This may make it seem that political phi-
losophy is a discipline with porous borders: on the one hand
to the social sciences and on the other to other parts of the dis-
cipline of philosophy as a whole. This is not a wholly mis-
leading impression, which makes writing a book which aims
at some degree of comprehensiveness virtually impossible: just
where does the subject stop?
In some respects this is an easy question to answer. In terms
of historical figures, there is a measure of agreement about the
canon (and truth by agreement is all that is required here).
Plato and Aristotle kick things off, and the key figures –
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill and Marx, up to the twenti-
eth century, are fairly obvious. It is there that things get com-
plicated and contentious. What is more, this concern is
perhaps exacerbated by the development of the subject in the
last 30 or so years, since the publication of John Rawls’s
Theory of Justice. In the wake of the protests against the
viii INTRODUCTION

Vietnam War on US campuses, a new intellectual phenome-

non emerged of philosophical engagement with political
affairs in a rigorous, radical and (usually) accessible way,
exemplified by the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs,
which joined Ethics as the key spaces for new work in the dis-
cipline. Together these mark out the terrain and the most
porous border of all, between political philosophy on one side
and applied ethics and moral philosophy on the other. In what
follows, this border is not seriously policed.
Two other territorial disputes deserve comment: one is
between political philosophy and ‘Political Theory’ and
the other, within philosophy itself, is between what have
come to be called – regrettably – analytical and continental
approaches. These two distinctions sometimes seem to join
hands: people who call themselves political theorists are often
more open to ‘continental’ approaches than people who call
themselves political philosophers. The general approach
taken here is that the lines between political philosophy on
the one hand and political theory, critical theory and applied
philosophy on the other are not always clear, but the core
concerns of political philosophy can be specified. It is a
largely normative enterprise and concerned with relations
between individuals, groups and the state. Its normativity –
its concern with how we ought to live, how we ought to con-
struct political institutions, laws and rules, and the nature of
our relation to those institutions laws and rules – is generally
unabashed. Political philosophers don’t mind telling people
what they ought, in the abstract, to do. Nonetheless, despite
its being a normative enterprise, political philosophy does, to
the consternation of some students, leave much more in place
than they might have expected. Political philosophers are not
averse to outlining principles of justice, but these are generally
abstract principles of justice couched in hypothetical terms,
depending for their application on masses of empirical and
social information, which is often unavailable in practice and
 INTRODUCTION ix

even in principle. For example, endorsement of the difference

principle does not map easily onto a particular position in
political debates over taxation. Political philosophy is often
played out at a level of abstraction that is remote from actual
policy. Much political theory closes that gap. For example,
political theory provides simplified models of real-world
political change – what might be called ideal descriptive
theory. Theories of the development of class-based social
democratic parties which conform to Michels’s iron law of
oligarchy would fall into this category. Social scientific and
psychological generalisations that constitute ideal descriptive
theory are often assumed in political philosophy as it is con-
ceived here, but they constitute a different realm and there is
a legitimate academic division of labour between political
philosophers and political theorists, thought of course there
is much cross-fertilisation. This is particularly true in some
of the freshest areas of the discipline such as discussions of
deliberative democracy and multiculturalism.
The question of the so-called ‘analytic/continental’ divide is
more contentious still, and, when the terrain is social and
political matters, becomes even harder to answer. Whilst there
is no claim here to methodological superiority, the approach
taken, the subjects covered, the conception of the terrain and
the nature of the presentation all betoken a commitment to
some of the properties most associated with an analytical
approach. This is not only a reflection of the author’s predil-
ections but also of the dominant paradigm of political
philosophy as practised in philosophy departments in the
Anglo-American world. In this respect, the line taken in the
second territorial dispute reflects something of the line taken
in the first. It rests on the view that what analytical philoso-
phers in political philosophy since Rawls have been doing is
not thoroughly wrong-headed. It is not dreadfully vitiated by
its foundationalism, made worthless by its failure to be self-
reflective, and its pursuit of a paradoxically oppressive and
x INTRODUCTION

exclusive road, in its insistence on rigour and transparency,

and its failure to be playful and allusive.
So, insofar as terms, authors and theories are central to this
enterprise – a largely normative enterprise, concerned with
relations between individuals, groups and the state – they are
central to the book. Insofar as they are more marginal to this
enterprise, they will be less substantial in the book. Pareto will
get a mention, but not as substantial an entry as Rousseau.
The book reflects the state of play in the discipline. It centres
on the Anglo-American tradition: so there are substantial
entries not only on Rawls but also on reflective equilibrium,
and on perfectionism. While centring on the Anglo-American
tradition there will be substantial entries on, for example,
Habermas, on deliberative democracy. There is substantial
cross-referencing through the book, which will enable the
reader to trace their way through a debate, fixing the major
points of reference. Readers will be able to move through the
book without discontinuities between the entries for thinkers,
issues and positions. As well as terms, theories and theorists,
there will be entries for any quirks of the discipline – so Wilt
Chamberlain is the sole basketball player to get an entry.
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the series editor Oliver Leaman, Carol

Macdonald at EUP, and colleagues and students at the Open
University especially those who tried out this material in draft
form. I’m also grateful to Paul Harkin, Seth Crook and Derek
Matravers who read the manuscript and made extensive
helpful comments, and, especially, to Gillian Ure and Imogen
Pike, who both made the experience of writing the book more
pleasurable than it might otherwise have been: it is dedicated
to them both.
 Using this book

This book is designed to be a comprehensive, authoritative

guide to one of the most important and widely taught
branches of philosophy. It is both topical and historical,
including entries on Hobbes, as well as on contract theory.
It is primarily intended for students at undergraduate level
where it is hoped that it will be useful both for beginners
and for more advanced students. It aims to be a standard
reference work which students will want to own along-
side their course texts. Political Philosophy from A–Z is
designed to work equally effectively with historical courses
of the ‘Plato to Nato’ variety and with non-historical or
themed courses, and courses in contemporary political
philosophy.
Political Philosophy from A–Z should enable students to
understand this terrain, because it links, contrasts and
demarcates positions, thinkers and theories. So it will be
clear how the libertarianism of Anarchy State and Utopia
rests on an assumption of self-ownership, how the ensuing
entitlement theory of distributive justice compares with an
account of the difference principle, and how this principle is
derived from the original position.
This level of interconnection means that readers will be
able to pick up on a network of different terms and argu-
ment, and allow each entry to reach further than its 300-
word limit might otherwise allow. So, the entry on Hobbes
is comparatively brief, but the cross-referencing allows
 USING THIS BOOK xiii

much wider exploration of his position through reference to

natural right, natural law, state of nature and so on.
Political philosophy is sometimes tricky for undergradu-
ates, since they bring a sense of the everyday political terrain
from current affairs, but this matches badly to the terrain
of the discipline. Rather than Democrats and Republicans,
Labour and Conservative, students encounter communitar-
ians and liberal-egalitarians, deliberative democrats and
Lockeans. Readers will meet them all in this book.
Political Philosophy A–Z
 A
abortion: The practice of deliberately ending a pregnancy is
perhaps the most contentious issue in contemporary
public culture, certainly in the US. Politically, the debate
has become polarised between those who support ‘a
woman’s right to choose’, sometimes resting this on an
account of bodily ownership, and those who assert the
moral status of the foetus or embryo as a person, poten-
tial person, or human, and, therefore, inviolable. The
former attitude is most common amongst feminists, the
latter is widely held amongst the especially religious.
Other positions are possible. Some consequentialists
bypass talk of the intrinsic status of the foetus or embryo,
and discuss abortion as a matter of public policy, examin-
ing the costs and benefits of changing the law. Others view
the question in terms of the constitutional processes by
which abortion law might be changed. Still others, within
moral philosophy, swerve away from general and abstract
principles towards case-by-case discussion of whether a
decision to abort can be the act of a virtuous agent.
As far as more general political philosophy goes,
debates over abortion exemplify the pluralism of com-
prehensive views of the good that philosophers from
Berlin to Rawls take as a starting point. Given that there
are deeply held, considered and reasonable views that
4 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

exclude each other, how ought our political institutions

to be framed? One answer is that this can be done only
on the basis of minimal rather than large agreement, and
on the basis of a thin or political liberalism, that does not
itself rest on any comprehensive moral or metaphysical
view. Those who hold to a comprehensive moral view
which is expressed in uncompromising views on abortion
are unlikely to accept this account of the ways in which
principles of political justice ought to be generated. They
are likely to think that the liberal virtue of toleration
ought not to be applied to those who seek to suppress
women/murder children.
Further reading: Hursthouse 1987; Hursthouse 1991;
Thomson 1971; Tooley 1972

absolutism: A system of rule in which there are no legal or

authoritative limits on the reach of the ruler. The ruler may
be an individual or the holder of an office – as is the case
in an absolute monarchy. An absolute power will be prac-
tically limited, but not limited by rival institutions or agen-
cies which claim political authority. Again, an absolute
authority may choose not to intervene in wide areas of
social life, but faces no legal obstacles if it does so choose
to intervene (and in this way, a totalitarian government –
which does intervene in all aspects of social life – can be
seen as a subset of absolutist rule).
Key advocates of absolutism include Jean Bodin and
Thomas Hobbes, as well as those such as Filmer who
believed that monarchs ruled by divine right. The argu-
ments for absolutism varied accordingly. For divine
right theorists, God’s agent on earth ought not to be
hampered by merely man-made laws; for Hobbes, divi-
sion and limitation of state power was too conducive to
a strife that would unravel back to the state of nature to
be countenanced.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 5

Monarchical absolutism has been on the wane for cen-

turies, but arguments over the nature and justification
of limits on popular sovereignty are still live. Ought pop-
ular sovereignty to override the public/private divide, and
what limits ought there to be on how a state can act
in respect of minorities? What role is there for judicial
review of government decisions? In each of these cases,
an argument arises for restrictions on the power of the
state. In each case, there can be an absolutist response: by
what right is the will of the people restricted?
See divine right; Hobbes, Thomas; tyranny of the
majority
Further reading: Skinner 1978

accidental distinction see essential/accidental distinction

accusatory system of justice: A system of natural jurispru-

dence in which accusations were made by private indi-
viduals rather than state prosecutors. The accuser would
swear an oath to the truth of his charge, and seek support
form other private individuals. The court of appeal was
an ad hoc affair with no permanent or paid officials. The
accusatory system of justice was banned by papal decree
in 1215, but serves as a model for John Locke of the
emergence of institutions of justice from the state of
nature.
See Locke, John; state of nature
Further reading: Tully 1993

act-utilitarianism: Act-utilitarianism, which is distinguished

from rule-utilitarianism, is a form of consequentialist
moral view which asserts that agents are morally obliged
to act in a way that secures the best consequences,
expressed in terms of the greatest happiness or the great-
est utility. In contrast to rule-utilitarians, act-utilitarians
6 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

engage in moral evaluation on a case-by-case basis. A

rule-utilitarian might endorse a general rule such as
‘always tell the truth’ because the rule was conducive – or
at least more conducive than any other rule such as ‘tell
lies when you like’ – to securing the best consequences.
An act-utilitarian, in contrast, might easily suggest cases
in which telling the truth would not be conducive to the
best consequences. Under these circumstances, the act-
utilitarian would prescribe breaking the rule to secure the
best consequences, and the rule-utilitarian, prescribing
obedience to the rule, would have to accept sub-optimal
consequences. On this account, it looks as if, properly
applied, act-utilitarianism rather than rule-utilitarianism
is conducive to optimal consequences. But rule-utilitarians
will be concerned with the qualification of proper appli-
cation. On their argument, we ought to act according to
rules that have the best consequence if internalised by the
overwhelming majority.
See consequentialism
Further reading: Hooker 2000; Smart and Williams
1973; Scheffler 1988

adaptive preferences: If an individual’s preferences are con-

sistently out of line with the situation in which that
individual finds themselves, then they will experience
frustration and discontent. In order to avoid frustration
and discontent, it is possible for them to adapt their pref-
erences, either consciously or not, so that they are more
in line with the individual’s situation. Adaptive preferences
of this sort seem to be a real phenomenon with support-
ing empirical evidence. However, they pose difficulties for
any system of resource allocation in which preferences
play a leading role: if preferences are adapted in order to
conform to the situation people find themselves in, then
they cannot be taken to indicate how individuals would
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 7

structure their choices between different dominating sit-

uations. It is this criticism of adaptive preferences that
has led some to look at more objective accounts of well-
being, such as those taken in the capabilities approach.
See capabilities approach
Reading Elster 1983

affirmative action: Policy of amending difference-blind lib-

eralism in order to secure advantages for previously dis-
advantaged groups. In particular, affirmative action
(which is sometimes called positive discrimination) has
involved changes in regulations to secure places in
sought-after public institutions such as universities,
the professions, and within political parties and public
institutions for women and ethnically underrepresented
groups. These may take the form of quotas, differential
entry requirements, targeted recruitment and reserved
spaces.
Affirmative action is contentious because it seems to
go against impartial principles of justice. The underlying
complaint that provides the supposed justification for
affirmative action is that places in universities and public
life ought to be distributed according to merit and not
according to morally irrelevant criteria such as ethnicity.
The fact that they have been distributed according
to such morally irrelevant criteria is shown, prima facie,
by the overwhelming preponderance of members of the
majority ethnic group in these positions. Affirmative
action seeks to remedy this apparent violation of the
merit principle. However, according to some critics, it
does so by infringing the merit principle itself, because it
introduces ethnicity into selection procedures.
To resolve this tension, partisans try either to under-
mine affirmative action by downplaying the underlying
problem and asserting the merit principle or, on the other
8 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

side, justifying affirmative action by foregrounding the

underlying problem, emphasising its injustice, and quali-
fying or amending the merit principle.
See discrimination; justice
Further reading: Boxill 1978; Edmonds 2006

alienation: According to Marx and later Marxists, alienation

is a key feature of capitalist societies and it captures
a sense in which what should be natural and famil-
iar becomes foreign or alien to an individual. In the
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx
describes four sorts of alienation. For the individual pro-
ducer, Marx says, is alienated first from his product,
second from the process or activity of production, third
from his fellow man and fourth from his species being. In
each case, something familiar becomes strange – the work
of individual producers returns to dominate them and
they become the ‘plaything of alien forces’. This encour-
ages feelings of competition and animosity towards
fellow human beings with whom we ought to live famil-
iarly, in harmony and cooperation.
Alienation has its roots in the two Hegelian notions of
estrangement and externalisation. It is related to other
sociological concepts – such as Durkheim’s notion of
anomie.
Controversy surrounds the extent to which alienation
is a subjective or objective phenomenon. If it is subjective,
then perhaps the resolution of alienation is not the over-
throw of capitalist social relations but a process of cheer-
ing people up. If it is an objective phenomenon, then an
error theory is needed to explain why some people lead
meaningless lives but are still happy.
Alienation rests on an account of human nature,
because it rests on assumptions about what is, or should
be, familiar or natural to us, and what is unfamiliar,
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 9

unnatural and alien. In doing so, it rests on some of

the more opaque claims about what it is to be human.
However, the critique of alienation is one of the parts
of Marx’s thought that has survived the experiments of
the twentieth century to remain a potent criticism of
capitalism.
See commodity fetishism; historical materialism;
Marxism
Further reading: Elster 1985; Ollman 1971

altruism: Actions directed at, or motivated by, concern for

the wellbeing of others, regardless of gains to the agent,
are altruistic actions, and the opposite of egoistic actions.
Altruism raises a number of problems.
First, are there, as a matter of fact, any genuinely altru-
istic actions? Psychological egoism is the view that denies
the existence of genuinely altruistic actions. Those who
hold this view aim to unmask seemingly altruistic acts as
somehow answering to the needs and desires of the agent.
Even self-sacrificial acts are to be explained by the reso-
lution of a tension within the agent herself – who ‘could
not live with herself’ for example, if she did not give up
her life for her child.
Second, some sociobiologists have developed a notion
of bio-altruism, in an endeavour to explain (for example)
the warning cries of Vervet monkeys – actions which
increase the risk to the individual monkey, but reduce
the risk to the group. Kin selection – the tendency to
favour altruistic actions towards one’s own relatives also
seems to fill an important explanatory gap. Without an
account of bio-altruism, these constituted a problem for
Darwinism.
Third, ought we to act altruistically? The answer seems
obviously to be in the affirmative: most moral codes rest
on concern for others, and condemn selfishness. But the
10 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

view is controversial. It might be said that altruistic acts

are praiseworthy (or supererogatory) but not obligatory,
or that helping others can generate a culture of depen-
dency, or that altruistic actions are in some other way
self-defeating.
Hobbes is one of the strongest critics of altruism. For
Hobbes, ‘of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is
some good to himself’. For David Gauthier, justice rests
on a system of rules that depend on prudence.
Others, though, find the stark contrast between egoism
and altruism to be an oversimplification. It seems obvious
that my good can be, in some way, constituted by the
good of others, that my life goes well when other lives go
well. Therefore, when I aim at other lives going well,
is that an altruistic or an egoistic view? In this way the
dispute at the level of moral prescription rests on a dif-
ference at the level of social theory – just how much are
we bound up, constituted by, and involved in the lives of
others?
See Hobbes, Thomas; prudence
Further reading: Gauthier 1986; Seglow 2004

analytical Marxism: Analytical Marxism is a school of

thought particularly associated with Professor Gerry
Cohen of Oxford. His work Karl Marx’s Theory of
History: A Defence (1978) applied the standards of ana-
lytical philosophy to Marx’s 1859 Preface to a Critique
of Political Economy, and defended it as a form of func-
tional explanation. The debate over the coherence of
functional explanation was joined by, among others,
John Elster and John Roemer who were working inde-
pendently on the analytical foundations of Marxism:
Roemer had a particular interest in formulating an
account of exploitation that did not require any of the
dubious metaphysical claims associated with the Labour
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 11

Theory of Value. Together with others, they formed an

entirely new school in the Academy, known as Analytical
Marxism, ‘no-bullshit’ Marxism, or, more specifically, as
the September Group – which included Sam Bowles, Bob
Brenner, Hillel Steiner, Philippe Van Parijs and Erik
Wright. This group played an important role in altering
the intellectual climate of political philosophy in Britain.
Marxist thought had been influential in universities, but
not in philosophy departments. The elusive nature of
continental theorising and the aspirations of Marxism to
‘scientific’ status voiced by people like Althusser failed to
penetrate far into analytical philosophy departments: the
emergence of the journal Radical Philosophy had been
one response to this hostility. The analytical Marxists
changed this. Amongst other activities, G. A. Cohen,
J. Elster and J. Roemer edited the influential series Studies
in Marxism and Social Theory, published by CUP: its
driving aspiration was that ‘with the tools of non-
Marxist social science and philosophy . . . Marxist
thought will thereby be freed from the increasingly dis-
credited methods and presuppositions which are still
widely regarded as essential to it and that what is true and
important in Marxism will be more firmly established’
(Series Statement). However, Cohen’s engagement with
Marxism became increasingly critical. In particular, he
became increasingly concerned about the impact of envir-
onmental constraints on the feasibility of a socialism
based on abundance, and, second, about the ‘obstetric
metaphor’ – that the new society was to be found in the
womb of the old.
See Cohen, Gerald A.; historical materialism
Further Reading: Cohen 1978; Elster 1985

anarchism: It is sensible to divide anarchism into two phenom-

ena – a political movement and a philosophical position.
12 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

The political movement, associated with Kropotkin and

Bakunin and most powerful towards the end of the nine-
teenth century, is one of extreme hostility to the state.
Hostile to the left notion of reforming the state or to the
notion of a workers’ state – political anarchism denies the
state any legitimacy at all – anarchists prefer the idea of
self-organised communities, attainable only after the
(violent) overthrow of an oppressive state machine.
Philosophical anarchism is a position taken in debates
about political obligation which asserts that there are
no good reasons for obeying laws made by the state, as
such. There may be independent moral grounds for those
laws – they may be good laws that are morally binding
because of their content. This view distinguishes between
the thought that you ought not to kill people because it is
wrong to do so and the thought that you ought not to kill
people because it is against the law.
Philosophical anarchists, especially following Robert
Paul Wolff, place a great deal of emphasis on autonomy
and argue that granting any sort of right of obedience to
the state involves an infringement of autonomy, and this
is especially true in the case of a state based on represen-
tative rather than direct democracy.
Contemporary anarchism is influenced by and influ-
ences the ecological movement and feminism. In both
cases, opposition to hierarchies is the common thread,
whether those be hierarchies between men and women,
hierarchies between human beings and nature or the hier-
archies that are characteristic of the state.
Critics of anarchism tend to suggest that it rests on a
false or utopian conception of human nature, or that it is
light-minded about the complexities of social provision
in a modern state, or that it grossly underestimates the
importance that large numbers of people place on the
welfare provisions of such states.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 13

See voluntarism
Further reading: Wolff 1970

anthropocentrism: A theory of moral consideration that is

centred on human beings. Unless anthropocentrists can
identify a morally relevant property possessed by all
humans and no other beings, then anthropocentrism is
open to the charge that it is arbitrary and speciesist.
See speciesism; zoocentrism

aristocracy: Literally, rule by the best. In Aristotle’s politics,

the contrast is drawn between oligarchy and aristocracy:
both involve rule by the few, but oligarchy consists of rule
by those few qualified by holdings of money, whereas
aristocracy consists of those qualified by virtue.
Aristocracy is the middle of the three basic types of rule
outlined by the Ancient Greeks – monarchy (rule by one)
and democracy (rule by the people) are the other two. For
Aristotle, in the Politics, aristocracy displayed some
advantages but was inclined to collapse into oligarchy –
rule by the wealthy few, in their own interests. However,
the term has come to mean a form of rule in which those
of a longstanding ruling class, distinguished by birth,
property and an elite education, wield power. Its justifi-
cation generally rests on some conception of natural or
God-given order: for example, in the words of the English
hymn:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund

Burke endorses aristocratic rule as an outcome of respect
14 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

for stable hierarchy, secured over many years. Support

for aristocracy tends to fit well with conservative, organic
and functional theories of society.
See Aristotle; Burke, Edmund

Aristotle (384–322 bce) was a Greek philosopher and

student of Plato. For Aristotle, man is a political animal –
his distinctive form of functioning is as part of a state
(although Aristotle had in mind a polis – a Greek city
state) and he is at home and fully human in a political
society. Politics is not something imposed on individuals
from above – it is part of the natural state of affairs.
Aristotle’s defence of natural hierarchies led him to
defend slavery, and the division of labour as natural and
just. And the polis was always premised on the restriction
of citizenship to free, native men.
Aristotle is a critic both of extreme democracy and
of the tyranny – his ideal form of rule was an aristoc-
racy, but this was an unstable form of rule. As a result,
Aristotle prefers a mixed government in which citizens
take turns in ruling and being ruled, with no dominant
class of citizens.
Aristotle’s most enduring contribution is probably his
organic conception of the state. The isolated individual is
not properly speaking human, since interdependence is
a feature of the essentially human condition. Custom
rather than fiat is a good basis for law, and political sta-
bility is one of the highest values, since only stability can
provide the conditions for citizens to fulfil themselves as
virtuous, contemplative beings who are fulfilled in polit-
ical participation in a just state.
His key works are the Politics, and the Nicomachean
Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. Contemporary Aristotelian-
ism has seen something of a revival, both in terms of
the resurgence of virtue ethics, but also in terms of some
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 15

interesting neo-Aristotelian resonances in the capacities

approach to economic inequality and in the commun-
itarian insistence on the artificiality of the (supposedly)
liberal model of human beings as atomised and abstracted
individuals.
See virtue ethics
Further reading: Miller, Fred D. 1995; Mulgan 1977

assurance game: A model in game theory which expresses the

idea of a virtuous circle. An assurance game generally
involves two players, and shows the result of the exist-
ence of trust between them, based on the assurance
received from past successful collaboration. Thus the
players are able to secure a higher long-term pay off
than if they competed, because of the existence of a
history of trust. Assurance games contrast with prisoner’s
dilemmas, which can be expected to collapse into self-
interested behaviour in which each player misses out on
the gains of cooperation for fear that the other player will
defect from cooperation first. Thus the short term trumps
the long term and the gains of defection beat the gains of
cooperation. Trust, assurance and reassurance alter this
dynamic. The question is: how are they to be generated?
The Hobbesian answer is that a powerful sovereign will
enforce contracts, ensuring transition from the prisoner’s
dilemma of the state of nature into the assurance game of
the commonwealth.
See game theory; prisoner’s dilemma; zero-sum game
Further reading: Hampton 1986

atomism: In political philosophy, atomism is a term that

works by analogy with the physical world. It chimes with
the atomic account of the physical world first found from
Democritus through Newton to the present day. When
applied to the social and political world, atomism is a
16 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

view that regards individuals as self-contained and self-

sufficient units which constitute the building blocks of
all larger social units. For atomists, the basic unit is the
isolated individual.
Atomism, though, is usually a charge against social
and political thinkers rather than a self-description. It is
comparatively difficult to find a thinker who explicitly
subscribes to this view, though Hayek and Nozick are
prime candidates. The charge is most commonly made
by Hegelians, Marxists and Communitarians, who object
to a denial of the ways in which individuals are consti-
tuted by the social relations and contexts in which they
find themselves. The key essay here is Charles Taylor’s
‘Atomism’ (1985) in which he attacked what he charac-
terised as the atomism underlying Nozick’s work and
counterposed the Aristotelian idea that ‘Man is a social
animal, indeed a political animal, because he is not
self-sufficient alone, and in an important sense is not self-
sufficient outside a polis’ (Taylor 1985: 190).
Some different forms of the charge need to be distin-
guished. Atomism might be taken to refer to a methodo-
logical approach, where all explanation is supposed to
take place by reference to individuals and their actions.
Explanation in terms of classes or institutions needs, on
this account, to be reduced to explanations couched
solely in terms of individuals. This methodological indi-
vidualism can usefully be contrasted with ethical individ-
ualism which focuses either on the claim that the ultimate
ethical agent is the individual or on the claim that the
individual ought to aim to promote his or her own inter-
ests rather than pursue the common good – a form of
ethical egoism.
See altruism; functionalism; methodological indivi-
dualism
Further reading: Taylor 1985
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 17

authority/authoritarianism: If a person or institution is

authoritative, this means two things. First, they are the
origin of certain judgements, claims, orders and so on –
they are the author of these judgements in the same way
that Tolstoy is the author of War and Peace. Second, the
fact that they are the author of these judgements gives
some reason for taking those judgements seriously – it
gives them some weight. In authoritarianism’s most clear
form, an agent or group is authoritative if it has the right
to do something, where the something includes requiring
some action from others. In the social and political
sphere, authority is asserted and questioned at the core of
all political and social relations. The need for a theory of
what makes an agent authoritative is clear.
Weber distinguished three types of authority: rational-
legal, traditional and ‘charismatic’, and much political
philosophy is concerned with the explication and justifi-
cation of these types and the conflict between them. In
particular, the development of Western democracies
involves a shift from traditional to rational-legal author-
ity, a shift which was the root of widespread disagree-
ment and conflict. Plato’s account of authority ends with
the advocacy of philosopher-kings, and the condemna-
tion of democracy: rule should be in the hands of those
who are experts, not those who are popular. Divine right
theorists, such as Filmer, explained authority in terms of
a direct bequest of God’s authority to temporal mon-
archs, whose line was established through inheritance.
This was thought to be an expression of the natural order
of things. Democratic theorists rest their account of
authority on a voluntaristic basis. Since Hobbes and
Locke, they tend to regard the individual human as the
source of authority – perhaps devolved from God. They
then explain political authority in the hands of the state
(or monarch) in terms of some sort of contract which
18 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

constitutes the authority and gives it its special status.

Philosophical anarchism is critical of all claims to politi-
cal authority on the basis that they necessarily undermine
the fundamental autonomy of the individual.
In contrast, a political theory is authoritarian if it pre-
scribes government based on established authority rather
than the consent of the governed. Hobbes’s account is
authoritarian, since he prescribes obedience to existing
authority, without inquiring into the legitimacy of its origins.
See anarchism; autonomy; rights
Further reading: Raz (ed.) 1990

autonomy: Self-rule – from the Greek nomos, meaning law or

rule, and auto, meaning self. Just as an automatic car
changes gear by itself, so an autonomous person rules
himself. Autonomy is thought by many to be of basic value,
since to treat someone as autonomous involves respecting
them as a rational being with the right to make up their
own mind as to how to live. Autonomy is contrasted with
heteronomy – being ruled by someone or something else,
and for philosophical anarchists this contrast lies at the
root of the problem of political obligation. If we are
obliged to follow rules made by others, then we can hardly
be said to be autonomous beings. Thus autonomy and
respect for others as autonomous beings conflicts directly
with political authority. Others would not go so far.
Kant is perhaps the chief theorist of autonomy, though
liberals in general raise autonomy as a key value.
Autonomy seems to demand and ground rights, though
some liberals, such as Mill, regard autonomy as only a
guideline since it is generally conducive to the greatest
good of the greatest number: we flourish if we are in con-
ditions of autonomy. Again, conditions of autonomy
feature in a kind of ideal theory, as a counterfactual claim
about coercion claims. For example, we can ask whether
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 19

a choice made by an individual is the same as one that

would have been made under conditions of perfect auton-
omy. Autonomy thus comes into conflict with notions
such as false consciousness and adaptive preferences –
psychological claims about acting in conditions of free-
dom. It also seems to rest on prior assumptions about the
debate on free will: whether libertarian ones, or compat-
ibilist ones. Whatever its roots, the idea of autonomy is
key for liberal thought. Sometimes it is so foundational
that liberals are accused of raising autonomy as a meta-
value, privileging it above other values (like community).
This accusation looks stronger against perfectionist lib-
erals than it does against anti-perfectionist ones.
See deontology; justice; Kant
Further reading: Dworkin 1988

B
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832) was a British Philosopher,
legal theorist and economist. His most important work
is the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789). Bentham was the founder of utilitar-
ianism according to which the aim of all legislation and
social reform – in which he played an active part – ought
to be the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Happiness was to be thought of as the presence of plea-
sure and the absence of pain, and this was to be ascer-
tained in a quantitative manner through the ‘felicific’ or
hedonic calculus. Bentham proposed that the calculus
take account of factors such as intensity and duration,
and the probability that an action or event would cause
additional future pain or pleasure. The role played by
laws was derived from this account: since the objective of
governments was to secure the greatest happiness, laws
20 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

ought to be conducive to that end. Those who break laws

should be punished in order to deter them, and others,
setting them back to activity conducive to the greatest
happiness. Bentham conceives of the outcome of policy
in a straightforwardly psychologically hedonistic way.
Bentham is also notable as a legal positivist, and as
a critic of natural rights – which he famously denounced
as ‘nonsense on stilts’. Rights were not natural phenom-
ena but the constructions of law: ‘from real law come
real rights, from imaginary laws come imaginary ones’
(Bentham 1843; Harrison (ed.) 1998).
Bentham sets himself against natural rights theories,
but also against that other opposition to absolutism –
social contract theory. Real contracts, Bentham accepts,
create real rights and obligations, but real contracts are a
product of actual government and political and legal
institutions. Therefore, they cannot be prior to, and a jus-
tification of, those institutions. Rather, the overall justifi-
cation of political society is couched in terms of its
benefits: we ought to calculate whether the ‘probable mis-
chiefs of obedience are less than the probable mischiefs of
resistance’ (Bentham 1843; Bentham 1988).
Embalmed, Bentham’s body is on display in University
College, London.
See consequentialism; utilitarianism
Further reading: Bentham 1988; Rosen 1983

Berlin, Isaiah (1909–97): Originally from a Latvian Jewish

family, Isaiah Berlin is one of the most celebrated con-
tributors to political thought of the twentieth century.
Berlin developed no system of his own, and his contribu-
tion lies more in the history of political thought than in
political philosophy as an analytical discipline. Berlin is
famed for insisting on the plural nature of moral values –
in opposition to monism, the idea that there is one
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 21

supreme value, one best way of living, and one set of

rules to cover them. This value of pluralism sponsors
opposition to any overarching or perfectionist account
of human nature. Moreover, Berlin opposes attempts
to realise or actualise such monist accounts by reforming
social institutions so that they fit with the monist
account. Instead, Berlin argued, politics ought to be a
practice that fits with the ‘crooked timber of humanity’ –
in Kant’s phrase, and he finds moral pluralism as far back
as Machiavelli. He saw in Rousseau and Marx harbingers
of the totalitarianism of the twentieth century, because of
their worrying emphasis on ‘positive freedom’. Berlin
also wrote on the German romantic tradition of Vico and
Herder, and was most famed in his life time for his small
book on Marx.
See perfectionism; pluralism; positive liberty
Further reading: Ignatieff 1998

brute luck/option luck: A pair of terms coined by Ronald

Dworkin to model a sophisticated version of luck egali-
tarianism. Brute luck concerns the effects of simple
chance, unmediated by individual choice, on a person’s
life, such as being struck by lightning. Option luck refers
to the chance outcomes of autonomous choices made by
an individual, such as suffering high losses at the roulette
table, having made a free and deliberate choice to gamble.
According to luck-egalitarians, justice requires compen-
sation for the effects of brute luck but not for the effects
of option luck.
The problem with the distinction is that it seems para-
sitic on views about free will and determinism that are
highly contested. Gambling addicts may wish to claim
that they are victims of brute luck: in contrast, someone
who chooses to take a walk in a thunderstorm may be
acting recklessly. If, in the end, the determinists are right,
22 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

then all luck is brute luck, and luck-egalitarians will

favour absolute equality. Otherwise some slippery meta-
physical concepts will play a large part in determining a
just distribution of resources.
See luck egalitarianism
Further reading: Dworkin 1981a; Dworkin 1981b

Burke, Edmund (1729–97): Burke was an Irish-born theorist

of conservatism and opponent of the French Revolution,
MP, and a leading parliamentary orator. In his major
work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke
outlines an organic conception of the state, advocacy of
slow and piecemeal reform (if it takes place at all), and
protests at the violent excesses of the revolutionaries.
Burke is regarded as the founder of modern conservative
thought.
See conservatism
Further reading: Burke 1985; Macpherson 1980

C
capabilities approach: This is an approach to distributive
justice which places human capabilities, rather than
bundles of goods, at the centre of concern. The key task
for just distributive arrangements is to allow those capa-
bilities to be made actual. This means, for example, that
additional resources ought to be distributed to those with
disabilities, since they will require greater resources in
order to actualise their capabilities. The principle is gen-
eralisable – it directs attention to the fact that individuals
may be differently able to use resources in order to bring
themselves up to a common level of welfare, and it sug-
gests that this consideration ought to weigh in calcula-
tions of distributive justice.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 23

Actualisation of capabilities is the measure by which

distributive arrangements are to be judged. The approach
is particularly associated with Martha Nussbaum and
Amartya Sen, and is of some significance for policy for-
mation on a global scale – Sen’s approach has a role
in the UN through the United Nations Development
Programme on Capability Indicators. Often, advocates
of the capabilities approach find themselves giving a list
of human capabilities and arguing about which capabili-
ties on the list are essential to human flourishing and
which are not. The approach has its roots in Aristotle’s
commitment to human flourishing.
Some have argued that the capabilities approach relies
too heavily on arbitrary assertions about human nature
and the good life, and so imposes an ethnocentric account
of human flourishing on diverse individuals and groups.
Can hermits or nomads flourish? If they can, then almost
all material goods, permanent shelter and social interac-
tion are not essential to the actualisation of central capac-
ities. If they can’t flourish, this seems ethno-centric. One
response to this criticism is to hollow out the conception
of human nature on which the capabilities approach
rests. But this risks reducing the theory to practical empti-
ness. Other, more applied, criticisms concern the degree
to which capabilities are measurable, and the suggestion
that, for policy purposes, the capabilities approach col-
lapses into more conventional forms of welfare provision
and policy.
Further reading: Nussbam and Sen 1993; Sen 1995

capitalism: A system of rules and distributive arrangements

based on private ownership and a market economy.
Capitalism particularly involves private ownership of
the means of production and, generally, finds those means
of production held in the hands of a minority of the
24 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

population. Consequently capitalist social relations are

relations of monetary exchange – of money for goods and
of labour for money. Capitalism is thought by its propo-
nents to be uniquely suited to human freedom, and to
non-hierarchical relations, but its opponents tend to point
to the very widespread resource and income inequality to
which it leads, and the exploitation and alienation that
they assert it involves.
Both empirically, and in theory, there are reasons for
associating mature capitalism with relatively mature,
relatively fluid democratic societies, and also for associ-
ating it with rapid technological development generated
through the competition that arises from the free con-
sumer market. However, this is associated with various
ills – consumerism (and the particular Marxist variant of
this – commodity fetishism).
Distinctively, capitalism organises production for
profit, rather than for the direct satisfaction of human
need. In Marx’s classical formulation, capitalism works
by extracting surplus value from labour: human labour
is distinctive in that it is the sole generator of value. But
the worker’s labour power is sold to the capitalist, and
value is extracted from him by the capitalist, in return
for the means of subsistence. Because of the paucity of
alternatives available to the labourer, this looks like
exploitation.
However, advocates of capitalism argue that, contrary
to expectations, it does better at serving human needs,
in a roundabout way, than any other possible competing
arrangement, because of side effects such as increased
productivity, increased innovation, and the trickling
down of benefits.
See Hayek, Friedrich August von; Marx, Karl; Nozick,
Robert; property
Further reading: Elster and Moene 1989; Nozick 1974
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 25

care ethics: An interest in an ethics specifically related to care

emerges from the debate between Kohlberg and Gilligan
(In a Different Voice, 1982) and from independent devel-
opments in moral theory – in particular, a return to dis-
cussion of virtue ethics, following Anscombe’s paper
‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (1958). Gilligan’s analysis of
moral development emerges from empirical results about
gender differences in thinking about justice. Small boys
thought in universal terms, girls in particular ones, espe-
cially thinking about specific relations to named individ-
uals, and responsibility and ties of affection with those
individuals. Gilligan later withdrew the claim that the
distinction between an ethic of care and an ethic of justice
was empirically founded.
Care ethics concentrate on actual relationships
between persons and are not necessarily universally
applicable. They involve giving value to emotional and
empathic identification with particular people, valuing
friendship and companionship, individual care (of chil-
dren, of the sick, of the elderly) associated with virtue
ethics and the ethics of Aristotle. One way of under-
standing the point of an ethics of care is to reflect on the
response to thanking someone for visiting you in hospi-
tal and receiving the reply – ‘well, it’s what morality and
duty demanded’.
In one way, care ethics is anti-political, because it
seeks to reorientate ethical thinking away from its public,
general and enforceable terrain, concerned with a con-
ception of the just society and how its laws should be, to
everyday interactions between people.
Nevertheless, care ethics has been influential in politi-
cal philosophy – critical of the focus on impersonal and
impartial principles of justice, and influential on the cri-
tique of Rawlsian justice offered by Iris Marion Young,
Elisabeth Anderson and others. Young argues against the
26 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

notion of impartiality as such, pushing the attack on

impartialism in the private sphere further into the realm
of politics.
See virtue ethics
Further reading: Barry 1995; Gilligan 1982

categorical imperative: Term used to describe the key princi-

ple of Kant’s ethical theory, and the guiding principle of
Kantian moral theory as it relates to political life. The
categorical imperative is found in Kant’s Groundwork to
the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) and comes in three
forms. First it takes the form of a general principle that
one ought to act only according to that maxim by which
you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.
In its second formulation, the categorical imperative is
to act in such a way that you always treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of any other,
never simply as a means, but always at the same time as
an end.
In its third formulation, the categorical imperative is to
act as though you were through your maxims a law-
making member of a kingdom of ends.
In terms of political philosophy, the Kantian categori-
cal imperative has been widely cited and used. It falls
most happily in line with opposition to utilitarian
accounts of authority and public policy. In particular, the
second formulation runs up against several ways in which
a simple utilitarianism prescribes actions that threaten
justice (for example, punishment of the innocent in
circumstances where that would be the action most
conducive to general well-being). The categorical imper-
ative sits well, too, with the separateness of persons
which is emphasised by liberal and libertarian thinkers –
the second formulation expresses well some intuitions
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 27

brought to the fore by consideration of the eye lottery

case. For that reason, it can seem to be part of an argu-
ment against redistributive taxation. Similarly, the cate-
gorical imperative can put limits on state enforcement of
our obligations to others, and so prescribe some general
boundaries between the state and the citizen. For this
reason, it has been central to some formulations of liberal
thought. Most recently, Kant’s imprecation has found rig-
orous development in the contractualist moral theory
outline by Scanlon.
See deontology; Kant, Immanuel
Further reading: Flikschuh 2000; O’Neill 1990;
Scanlon 2000

circumstances of justice: The circumstances of justice are the

conditions that are jointly necessary and sufficient for
justice to be required. If there are circumstances of justice
then there are at least possible, and perhaps actual,
worlds in which justice is not required. Equally, the cir-
cumstances of justice will prescribe the kinds of problems
that justice is required to resolve. Political Philosophers
from Aristotle, to Hume, Kant, Marx and Rawls have
had something to say about the circumstances of justice.
For Aristotle, justice was sometimes counterposed to
friendship; amongst friends there is no need for justice.
Hume’s account in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles
of Morals, Section III Part 1, is the locus classicus for con-
temporary discussions. In this account, Hume suggests
that there are both objective and subjective conditions of
justice. If there is absolute abundance of some good, such
as air, then there is simply no need for principles of justice
in order to determine its distribution. At the other end of
the scale, and more controversially, if there is so little of
some essential good that life is at stake, then justice
becomes a luxury to be dispensed with.
28 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

But the conditions of justice are also subjective:

scarcity denotes a gap between what is available and
what is wanted, and wants can vary. A world in which
commodities seem to bestow power and in which a com-
petitive and zero-sum struggle for status is part of the
fabric of society is one in which principles of justice will
be required. So too, when there are dramatic inequalities
of power.
Marx and others have argued that the circumstances of
justice are historically specific – consequently that the
rights of man are the rights of egoistic man. Whatever
might be the case about economic abundance – and
growing ecological concern suggests that optimism here
might be misplaced – recent philosophers such as Rawls
have highlighted competing conceptions of the good life
as one of the irreducible background considerations
which drive and require a theory of justice.
In another possible world, four things might be differ-
ent. First, it is conceivable that there could be very great
material abundance. Secondly, and alternatively, there
could be very great self-restraint and altruism. This is an
alternative to abundance in the following way: the need
for restraint and altruism varies inversely with the level
of abundance, but at the poles – absolute abundance or
absolute self-restraint – there is no need for a corre-
sponding level of self-restraint or abundance respectively.
Thirdly, it is conceivable that there could be only one,
generally agreed, conception of the good (or a few con-
ceptions that were congruent in all their material conse-
quences). Perhaps there could be only one conception of
the good, because there could, in fact, only be one good,
and in some way this good life for man has been discov-
ered. Fourthly, it is conceivable that there could be
knowledge of congruent preferences that is so near to
perfect that conflict over the means of securing the good
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 29

would come to an end. The exact relation between these

four conditions is a little contentious – whether they are
jointly necessary for justice, or only individually neces-
sary. Nevertheless, it is clear that, in a world marked by
these conditions, or one like it, there would be much less
need for careful thinking about distributive justice.
See distributive justice; justice
Further reading: Lukes 1987

civic republicanism: Civic republicanism is a term for a variety

of political thought with a long history. It refers to a
democratic and participative tradition which draws on
insights found in Aristotle, Cicero and Machiavelli through
to Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and James Madison. In these
writers, civic republicanism involves recognition of the
necessary interdependence of human beings, and an
account of freedom that is arguably richer than the liberal
focus on the absence of external constraint. If our lives are
necessarily interdependent, then, in the face of mutual vul-
nerability, we share a common fate. Political participa-
tion is the key to determining that common fate and, even
more, to securing meaningful freedom.
Civic republicanism then focuses on common goods
and political involvement in contrast to the liberal
emphasis on individual interests and rights. In this respect
it is akin to communitarianism, but there are differences.
Whereas communitarians tend to rely on pre-existing
community values, civic republicans pay more attention
to the way in which values emerge through a deliberative
process.
Civic republicanism predates liberalism but owes the
resurgence in its significance to the eclipse of the conflict
between liberalism and socialism. It works as a critique
of liberalism, but is posed at the philosophical and pol-
itical level, rather than being primarily concerned with
30 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

economic inequalities and exploitation. Prominent advo-

cates of civic republicanism and critics of liberalism on
this sort of basis include Hannah Arendt and Charles
Taylor.
The focus on political participation is in one way
distinctive and in another way not. Emerging from the
liberal-communitarian debate, some liberals acknowl-
edge the importance of participation as an instrument to
secure individual liberties as individuals pursue separate
ends. But this contrasts with a view which foregrounds
participation as a key independent value regardless of its
effects – a view known as civic humanism.
See positive liberty; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Further reading: Honohan 2002

coercion: Someone is coerced if they are made to do something

against their will. However, coercion must be distinguished
from compulsion. A paradigm case of compulsion occurs
when someone is physically manipulated into an action
whilst resisting that action. For example, if someone is lit-
erally chained and restrained, and either manipulated into
an act or subjected to an act, then they are compelled. Less
clear-cut cases of coercion are involved when physical
compulsion is absent, but the possible coercer alters the
options available to an individual in order to ensure a
certain outcome. Normally, this will be by means of a
threat, designed to increase the costs of the least-favoured
option. In this case, the degree to which coercion is
involved depends on the alternatives on offer. A judgement
is required of the coerced person, that it was not reason-
able to expect her to resist the pressure applied to under-
take the action sought by the coercer. At what point is it
clear that the coerced person is offered ‘no choice’?
The coercer alters the cost of the alternatives available
to the coercee by ensuring that the sought alternative is
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 31

much less costly than the alternative, which is expressed

as a threat. Thus the coercer may offer a (real choice):
your money or your life.
Further reading: Wertheimer 1987

Chamberlain, Wilt: Wilt Chamberlain was a basketball

player. In the famous Wilt Chamberlain example, Nozick
aims to show that free exchanges of resources will lead
to instabilities in any pattern of resource distribution.
Because the exchanges are uncoerced, there can be no
complaint against them, and no injustice in a process that
leads to inequality. By employing a modified version of
Locke’s account of appropriation, he aims to establish
that widespread inequalities of holdings between individ-
uals cannot be justly broken down by redistributive tax
policies. This is because taxation is a form of forced
labour, and so infringes the rights of individuals. The
upshot of Nozick’s argument is that intuitions about
equality are trumped by intuitions about self-ownership
and the property rights that these intuitions entail.

Cohen, Gerald A.: Canadian philosopher and Chichele

Professor of Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford.
Whilst teaching at University College, London, Cohen
established his reputation with Karl Marx’s Theory of
History: A Defence (1978) which presented and defended
an account of historical materialism in an analytical
manner. With the book Cohen founded a school of
Analytical Marxism, although he gradually moved away
from his concern with Marxism towards normative polit-
ical philosophy. First, in Self-Ownership, Freedom and
Equality (1995), he criticised the assumption of self-
ownership which underpinned Nozick’s entitlement
theory of justice. Then in If You’re an Egalitarian, How
Come You’re So Rich? (2000), he criticised the limits on
32 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

the egalitarianism found in Rawls’s Theory of Justice. He

argues for a form of luck egalitarianism, and for the need
for an egalitarian ethos: it is not enough simply to ensure
that institutions are just.
See functionalism; historical materialism; luck egali-
tarianism; self-ownership
Further reading: Cohen 1978; Cohen 1986; Cohen
2000

communitarianism: Communitarianism is an approach to

political philosophy that places a great deal of emphasis
on the importance and strength of communities, cultures
and traditions in the formation of political identities.
However, rather than being a well-defined position it is
more a tendency of thought, characterised by the idea
that liberalism overestimates the individual as the bearer
of value at the expense of communal goods.
Philosophical communitarianism is specifically asso-
ciated with criticism of the ‘unencumbered self’ which is
supposed by some communitarians to be core to classi-
cal liberal thought. The ‘unencumbered self’ is the self
without community ties or allegiances, ageless and gen-
derless, and without a comprehensive conception of
the good life. On some accounts, the unencumbered
self is the building block of liberalism, the sort of indi-
vidual best placed to select principles of justice. Against
this picture, communitarians doubt the possibility –
and coherence – of being unencumbered in this way, and
so doubt the possibility of constructing a theory of
justice that is prior to a theory of the good. The term
is associated with the work of Charles Taylor, Michael
Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Walzer.
However, each of them has been less than enthusiastic
about endorsing the label. Sandel’s text Liberalism and
the Limits of Justice is the key starting point for the
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 33

communitarian critique of Rawls, whilst MacIntyre and

Walzer direct their criticism at aspects of modern culture
more generally.
Political communitarianism expresses the common
complaint that contemporary social life lacks ‘a sense of
community’ and the desire to recover it. It is best repre-
sented by Amitai Etzioni’s The Spirit of Community
(1993), and William Galston’s work. Political communi-
tarianism emphasises that rights need to be balanced by
responsibilities, and opposes a culture of egoism and indi-
vidualism and promotes the community, the family and
opposition to social disintegration – for example, the pro-
motion of community based action as a way to combat
crime. Political communitarianism, though, is some dis-
tance from philosophical communitarianism.
See liberalism; Marxism; Rawls, John
Further reading: Etzioni 1993; Macintyre 1981; Sandel
1985; Swift and Mulhall 1992; Taylor 1989; Walzer
1983

community: Generally, community refers to any relatively

stable social group, based on or differentiated by, more
or less any characteristic. However, the word also has a
more technical use in John Locke’s Second Treatise. For
Locke, the community is what emerges from the state of
nature. The community entrusts its interests to a gov-
ernment and it is the job of the government to serve the
interests of the community. Communities are relatively
stable, according to Locke, so that a change of govern-
ment does not mean that the crisis of political power will
unravel right the way back to an antagonistic state of
nature.

consent: Consent is a key term in contemporary political

philosophy because of the widespread concern with
34 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

treating individuals as persons, a concern which has its

roots in Kant and Locke. If I am to treat you with respect
for your personhood, then, before I undertake any act
which may affect you, I need to have your consent. This
seems to apply in clear cases of ethical concern, from
sexual behaviour (intercourse without consent is rape) to
medical practices, where medical intervention without
consent is contrary to many ethical codes, even if in
the patient’s best interests, to questions of political
authority – where legitimacy seems to rely on some sort
of consent given by the governed.
But this last example highlights some of the problems:
if legitimate government is based on consent, then can
I not withdraw my consent to the parking restrictions
outside my house, in order to deprive them of their legit-
imacy? What if we all did that? Making individual
consent a necessary condition for the legitimacy of the
state seems to be too strong. But weakening the require-
ment in the direction of tacit consent or hypothetical
consent seems to water down the attraction of the ori-
ginal problem-solving idea.
Again, is consent given in an informed way? Consent
based on false or partial information seems not to carry
with it the binding effects between the consenter and the
outcome that she has consented to. But who is under the
responsibility to secure the fully informed consent of
the individual in question, and what are the limits to this
responsibility? Sometimes it is said that consent is
binding only if it is secured ‘under conditions of auton-
omy’. But the implications of insisting on these ideal
world constraints might be that there is very little genuine
consent on offer in the real world.
See authoritarianism; express consent; Locke; John;
Plamenatz, John; tacit consent; voluntarism
Further reading: Plamenatz 1968
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 35

consequentialism: Consequentialism is a term first used by

Elisabeth Anscombe in 1958 to cover a range of theories
according to which the moral value of an act or other
moral entity is derived solely from its consequences.
Clearly, consequentialists need to say what it is about the
consequences that constitute moral worth. Are the
consequences an increase in human happiness, or a max-
imisation of preference satisfaction, or experiences of
beauty? Consequentialism itself leaves open the criterion
of moral worth, and so covers a family of views, most
notably utilitarianism.
However, it does rule other views out – such as the view
that the moral worth of an act derives from its being in
accordance with some rule such as the categorical imper-
ative, or its being carried out from a sense of duty, or its
being the sort of act characteristically carried out by a vir-
tuous agent.
This gives rise to a difficulty for all consequentialist
thought – that it seems to conflict with justice, if it is the
case that an unjust act can have good consequences. Even
if, in practice, this can be ruled out, still, the prohibition
on unjust acts ought (anti-consequentialists argue) to
arise from the fact that they are unjust, not because they
happen to have bad consequences.
There is also controversy over whether consequen-
tialism is supposed to act as a decision procedure or a
criterion of rightness. If it is the former, then it looks
impracticable in a world in which infinite, unforeseen
consequences ripple out from an act. If it is the latter,
then a criterion of rightness which one never knows one
has met seems worse than useless.
Nonetheless, consequentialism is attractive if we require
that moral and political action is rooted in and valued on
the basis of the actual changes – the consequences – that
actions bring into being, and this is a plausible thought.
36 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

See deontology; Mill, John Stuart; utilitarianism; virtue

ethics
Further reading: Anscombe 1958; Scheffler 1988

conservatism: To call conservatism a political philosophy is

rather to overstate the case. Rather, conservatism is a tra-
dition in political thought, characterised by perhaps three
key features.
The first is scepticism about reform: the currently exist-
ing state of things is thought by conservatives to contain
historic wisdom, and proposals to reform the existing
order are fraught with risk. This scepticism extends both
to abstract reasoning about the principles governing
human affairs – conservatives preferring the more solidly
empirical approach – and scepticism towards any sort of
radical or revolutionary change.
Second, conservatism often rests on an organic concep-
tion of society and the state, where each element functions
for the good of the whole. This is both an explanatory
notion and a normative one: it can require that what an
individual ought to do is to discover his or her role, and
then perfom it.
Thirdly, conservatism is deferential towards estab-
lished authority without inquiring too deeply into the
sources of that authority. It is, consequently, hostile to
the social contract tradition of Locke, Hobbes and
Rousseau.
Lastly, conservatism tends to favour what it sometimes
sees as natural hierarchies. Contemporary conservatives
such as Roger Scruton and John Kekes express many
of these themes, but they also target the egalitarianism
which is a strong strand in contemporary political
philosophy
See Aristotle; Burke; Edmund; Nozick, Robert
Further reading: Kekes 1999; Scruton 1980
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 37

contextualism: A school of thought in the history of polit-

ical philosophy particularly associated with Cambridge
University according to which the social historical political
and literary context of a text is essential to a proper under-
standing of its meaning. The term is perhaps most associ-
ated with Quentin Skinner who launched a ferocious
attack on much work of interpretation of historical texts in
‘The Limits of Historical Explanation (1966, in Tully [ed.]
1989). In this he showed that a variety of interpreters had
included anachronistic and ahistorical claims in their work,
arising from an ahistorical methodology. Influenced by
Wittgenstein, Skinner argued that writing political works
was an illocutionary act – and in order to understand the
meaning of the act it was essential to understand the ques-
tions that an author was addressing, and the texts to which
he was responding. Others influenced by the school include
John Dunn, James Tully and Richard Tuck. A key moment
in the development of the Cambridge or Contextual school
came when Peter Laslett showed that Locke’s two Treatises
on Civil Government were written not after the revolution
of 1688, as a post hoc rationalisation of the new regime,
but in fact between 1679–83, as a revolutionary tract, in
effect prescribing revolutionary acts against the state.
The contextual school contributes greatly to our under-
standing of the complex matrix of intentions, responses,
questions and influences that inform a writer’s intent in
reading a work. But the suggestion that there is a single
methodological key to understanding a text, and that
there was nothing to be learned from a self-consciously
ahistorical account based on rational reconstruction, is
now out of favour. Philosophers now tend to argue for
methodological pluralism in which the approach to deter-
mining the interpretation of a text depends critically on
the questions which one asks of it.
Further reading: Tully (ed.) 1989
38 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

contract theory: If political philosophy is a normative prac-

tice, then it will spend much of its time assessing what
obligations and duties we have. Obligations may have
many sources, but, roughly speaking, they might be
natural or constructed. If they are constructed, this might
be because persons make promises to each other.
Promising generates obligations, and the idea of a con-
tract is a generalisation and formalisation of the practice
of promising. Thus contract theory is important because
contracts are an archetypal way of establishing obliga-
tions, and obligations give us rules that can apply gener-
ally – hence, for those who find the idea of natural
obligations inadequate or mysterious, contractualism can
seem to be the root of all normative thinking in political
philosophy.

control/income rights: Distinction introduced by John

Christman into discussions of distributive justice. The
right of private property is in fact an aggregation of
several specific individual rights, so that one can distin-
guish fuller and weaker theories of private property
depending on which particular nest of rights they ascribe
to the property owner. Christman’s distinction is between
those rights required to control the use of a thing and
rights over the income generated by that thing. If the dis-
tinction works, it shows how someone can own – in the
sense of controlling – a thing, without that ownership
leading to very wide inequalities of wealth since the prop-
erty owner does not own the rights to profit from the use
of the thing. In this way, the distinction between control
and income rights underpins an attempt to bring together
self-ownership rights (construed as control rights) with a
concern for economic equality and redistributive taxation
policies (since the income rights do not sit with the owner
of the control rights). This allows a reconciliation of
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 39

concerns about equality with concerns about autonomy

and self-ownership, a reconciliation that is the aim of left-
libertarians.
See libertarianism; property
Further reading: Christman 1994a; Christman 1994b

conventional rights see natural rights/conventional rights

cosmopolitanism/cosmopolitan justice: The view, most

famously articulated by Kant, in Perpetual Peace
(1795), that advocates a world state and world govern-
ment that transcends and replaces nation states. The
ideal has Stoic roots, expressed in the claim of Diogenes
Laertius, ‘I am a citizen of the world’. More abstractly,
cosmopolitans favour supra-national law and cosmo-
politan institutions of justice which implement universal
standards of justice. Cosmopolitanism is clearly opposed
to realist accounts of international relations and involves
generalising arguments about justice from the level of
the nation state to the level of the world as a whole. It
thus tends to dissolve the distinction between distribu-
tive theories of justice organised on a national basis
(such as that of Rawls in A Theory of Justice [1971]) and
the whole perspective of international (rather than
global) justice as such. For Thomas Pogge, cosmopoli-
tianism has three components: individualism – human
beings rather than family lines, tribes, ethnic, cultural,
or religious communities, nations, or states are the
proper objects of concern; universality – this concern is
due to every living human being equally; generality – the
concern is due from everyone in the same way.
Amongst contemporary cosmopolitan thinkers are
Martha Nussbaum, Brian Barry and David Held.
Nussbaum argues that cosmopolitanism does not displace
particular attachments to kin, but augments them, whilst
40 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Held speculates on world government and the possibilities

of thoroughgoing institutional reform.
Further reading: Caney 2006; Nussbaum 1999

D
deliberative democracy: An account of democracy that fore-
grounds deliberation, discussion and dialogue directed
towards agreement. Deliberative democracy is generally
contrasted with pictures of democratic decision making in
which citizens are polled on their preferences, with no
need or obligation to take part in a deliberative process.
The term originates from Joseph Bessette in ‘Deliberative
Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican
Government’ (1980), and is also associated with propos-
als and arguments presented by Jon Elster, Amy Gutmann
and Joshua Cohen, and it draws on Habermas’s concep-
tion of ideal discourse. One model of deliberative democ-
racy is the jury system in criminal trials. Some proponents
of deliberative democracy make reference to the ways in
which deliberation can improve the quality of the deci-
sions made. This justifies deliberative processes as a better
instrument for making decisions – decisions will be more
effective, or better judged, or morally sound if they
are made through deliberative processes. Others, drawing
on historical traditions going back to Aristotle regard
deliberation and participation as intrinsic goods.
Amongst deliberative instruments are citizens’ juries,
public meetings, focus groups and online communities
with decision-making powers. Deliberative democrats
characteristically tie the legitimacy of decisions to the
deliberative process, arguing that, without the opportu-
nity for participation in a deliberative process, decisions
cannot be authoritative, even if they reflect the majority
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 41

opinion. Recording the process, too, is central to the

deliberative agenda. There is congruence between this
view and the account of moral justification given by Tim
Scanlon, in that deliberative democracy draws attention
to the reasons given for a particular view, not simply the
preferences of those who have a chance to vote. In par-
ticular, the reasons need to be publicly presented – and
not capable of reasonable rejection by those who are the
victims of the decision. In this way, deliberative democ-
racy is designed to achieve the consensus that is essential
to a decision being authoritative. The relation between
deliberative democracy and voting procedures is an
underdeveloped area, however.
See civic republicanism; democracy
Further reading: Pressette 1980; Cohen, Joshua 1997;
Elster, Jon 1997

democracy: Democracy is a system of government in which the

people (Greek ‘demos’) rule. Its origins lie in fifth-century
Athens, the first democracy, where decisions were taken by
a variety of democratic methods, including assemblies
and the drawing of lots. A number of different models
of democracy can be distinguished. Direct and indirect
models are distinguishable according to whether there
is an intermediary between the voter and the decision.
Contemporary liberal democratic assemblies of elected
representatives are forms of indirect democracy, one form
of which is representative democracy. Telephone voting
for game shows is a form of direct democracy, closely
related to participatory democracy. Recent theorists have
placed more emphasis on the processes of discussion and
reflection involved in making democratic decisions, and
constructed models of deliberative democracy.
Democracy is marked by an assumption of equality
between the participants in the decision-making process,
42 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

though also by the drawing of lines between those who

participate and those who do not. Fifth-century Athenian
democracy included men, but excluded women, slaves
and foreigners, and contemporary democracies exclude
children and sometimes prisoners, or bankrupts, or
various other categories of would-be voters.
Democracy is thought to be closely related to legitimacy
and the justification of political obedience, especially on
the basis of voluntaristic assumptions about legitimacy.
How can someone reasonably be expected to obey a gov-
ernment when she had no place in selecting it? Democratic
governments provide a way of weakening the threat to
autonomy that is involved in being governed at all.
Plato is the most famous philosophical opponent of
democracy. In The Republic, he asks why those who lack
knowledge of statecraft should be entrusted with the
running of the state. He presents an analogy with sailing
a ship. It would be dangerous and absurd to allow the
whole crew to determine the course of a ship: it is ratio-
nal to entrust this task to expert navigators and helms-
men: the same goes for states.
Simple majoritarian democracies face the criticism that
they pay insufficient attention to the rights or interests of
minorities: democracies involve the ‘tyranny of the
majority’. A persistent minority is not respected and this
shows that the minority cannot be autonomous since it is
ruled by a rule it didn’t make itself.
The problem of minorities gives rise to a paradox of
democracy: the supporter of democracy who also supports
a minority viewpoint seems to be committed to saying that
they support outcome A because it is the majority view, and
they support outcome not-A because that is the minority
view with which they agree.
See deliberative democracy
Further reading: Wollheim 1962
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 43

democratic centralism: Democratic centralism is the key

organisational principle of Leninist politics. The term
democratic centralism was most clearly explicated in
What Is to Be Done? (1902) – and Lenin summarised the
doctrine as ‘[f]reedom of discussion, unity of action’. For
Leninists, democratic centralism prescribes the way in
which a ‘combat’ party, engaged in a fierce political strug-
gle, ought to operate, by maintaining internal freedoms,
but presenting a united face to the world.
At the time of What Is to Be Done?, democratic cen-
tralism played a part in provoking the split with the
Menshiviks, and was also opposed by Leon Trotsky, who
argued for a more open organisation. In practice the idea
of democratic centralism has been open to huge abuse,
since the balance between the democratic element and the
centralist element is not formally specified. The idea is
that discussions are free up to the point of a vote, in
which the majority decides the line taken by the entire
party. But this means that questions cannot be reopened
in the light of changing events, and it seems to assume
that majorities are stable. What is more, democratic cen-
tralism does not make any space for recognition of a plu-
rality of sincerely held conceptions of the good. All of this
seems problematic in theory and practice. In fact, the
Bolshevik Party moved away from democratic centralism
towards straight centralism and absolute authority on the
part of the leadership very early in its life, with many
critics dating the abandonment of the principle to the Ban
on Factions at the Xth Party congress of the Bolshevik
Party in 1921.
See deliberative democracy; democracy
Further reading: Lenin [1902] 1988

deontology: Name given to a species of ethical theory that

places duty at the core of moral value. Deontology is
44 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

particularly associated with Kant, and with the idea that

a set of moral prescriptions that is objectively true, gen-
erally in the form of a set of rules, can be proposed by
rational and conceptual analysis, not empirical inquiry.
In this way, and many others, deontological ethics is
opposed to the two other great species of ethical theory –
consequentialism and virtue theory, both of which give a
role to the empirical. Deontological theories insist upon
our duties to treat others as rational beings.
Deontological ethics focuses on how we ought to
treat each other, given that we are rational and
autonomous beings. One short answer is that we ought
to treat people precisely as rational and autonomous
beings, which we fail to do if we treat them solely as a
means to an end that they cannot share. This, and other
forms of the same basic idea, expressed in the categori-
cal imperative form the basis of the deontological
approach to politics. Such restrictions on how we ought
to treat each other fit well with theories of human rights
(though these can have a non-deontological grounding)
and with the liberal idea of limited government, and the
key role of consent in determining what is and is
not politically justifiable. If I consent to your actions
(and I am consenting under conditions of autonomy)
then you are entitled to act. If I do not consent, then you
are treating me instrumentally. Furthermore, Kantian
ethics of this sort seems to underpin an emphasis on rea-
sonable persuasion rather than coercion as a key value
– it seems, then, a good fit with many democratic
presumptions.
Critics of deontology point out that it is possible to
found a liberal democratic polity on a quite different
basis (though it might be doubted whether the
foundations are so secure) and point to the austere
and unforgiving prescriptions of some deontologists,
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 45

including Kant himself. The abstraction of deontology

can be contrasted unfavourably with the down-to-earth
approach taken by utilitarians, and the way in which
virtue theory captures our intuitions about special
duties to particular people – our own parents or chil-
dren, for example.
See consequentialism; Kant, Immanuel; virtue ethics
Further reading: O’Neill 1990

descriptive see normative/descriptive

desert: Desert is, perhaps surprisingly, a concept whose place

and status in political philosophy is controversial. It
seems to be obvious that if I deserve something, then I
ought to receive it, and, furthermore, that if I deserve
something, it is because of some property that I possess,
something that I have done or something that I am. This
property is the basis of desert. Given that considerations
of desert determine who gets what, then it is clear that
they will figure in debates about distributive justice. But
this is where the controversy enters in. For, while it might
seem that I deserve my riches because I have worked
exceptionally hard for them, is it the case that I deserve
the ability to work exceptionally hard? Perhaps this
ability is itself just a product of the natural lottery, and
distribution of talents under the natural lottery are, as
Rawls memorably argued, ‘arbitrary, from a moral point
of view’. But if the capacity to get the property that is the
basis of my desert claim is distributed in an arbitrary
manner, then distribution according to desert only rein-
forces that original arbitrary distribution and so is ethi-
cally impermissible.
If desert does not ‘go all the way down’, but capaci-
ties for securing the bases of desert are distributed arbi-
trarily, then a distributive justice based on desert will
46 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

itself be arbitrary, and we should look at other ways of

distributing – perhaps in accordance with need.
Desert theorists react in a number of ways: they could
argue that desert does indeed go all the way down, or that
it goes down quite far enough to provide the basis for a
distributive scheme. Or they might suggest that desert is
a sufficiently primitive notion that, whatever the difficul-
ties at the level of individual responsibility, it has to be
incorporated into any notion of distributive justice that is
to have rational consent.
See distributive justice; Nozick, Robert
Further reading: Pojman, L. P., and Pojman, O. M. (eds)
1999

difference-blind liberalism: The dominant account of political

rules and institutions in much of the developed world has
been a liberalism that claims to take persons as of equal
value, ignoring morally irrelevant distinctions between
them. This liberal account has provided a basis for oppo-
sition to legally instituted racism in South Africa and the
southern states of the US. One way of thinking about this
opposition to racist laws, such as those that made up the
apartheid state, is to say that, from the point of view of
justice, racial and cultural differences don’t matter. To put
it differently, Apartheid, Jim Crow Laws and so on are
wrong because race doesn’t count from a moral point of
view: it is not morally relevant. Liberalism emphasises
universal elements of our common humanity. These uni-
versal features of our existence provide the basis for
saying that all are equal before the law. Religious and cul-
tural differences exist, to be sure, but they are a private
matter. In the political arena, we ought to be concerned
with the common good and the general will.
See multiculturalism
Reading: Barry 2001; Baumeister 2000; Taylor 1995
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 47

difference principle: The difference principle is a key princi-

ple of distributive justice found in the work of John
Rawls, and articulated in his A Theory of Justice (1971).
The difference principle is the last of his principles con-
cerning distributive justice and is lexically secondary to
concerns about equal rights. Once all that has been dealt
with, Rawls argues that the principles that would be
chosen behind a veil of ignorance include the idea that
inequalities are only justified in so far as they benefit the
least well off. The idea is, first, that there is a presump-
tion in favour of economic equality – desert-based
inequalities are unjustified, because in the end they
derive from the natural lottery – desert does not ‘go all
the way down’. But insisting on equalities that disad-
vantage the least well off seems absurd. Rather we
should give priority to their interests and allow such
exceptional inequalities.
The difference principle is controversial in many differ-
ent ways: first, desert and entitlement theorists object to
the way that desert is kept out of the distributive picture,
and object to the perceived injustice of redistributive
policies (see Wilt Chamberlain). Second, some egalitari-
ans argue that Rawls licenses far too much inequality: the
main category of exceptions is the practice of egalitarian
tax regimes that would tax the talented very highly. These,
it is said, would act as a disincentive for those people,
which would damage the interest of the worst off, who
would otherwise gain from the trickling down of benefits
from the talented. But this – argue Rawls’s critics – allows
too much inequality to be justified by accepting the ine-
galitarian and selfish behaviour of the talented.
Finally, the scope of the difference principle is contro-
versial. In A Theory of Justice, the difference principle
applied within a single nation state – applying the diff-
erence principle internationally in a cosmopolitan way
48 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

looks tricky in theory, because of the need to establish

appropriate duties and responsibilities, and problematic
in practice, necessitating difficult judgements about
incentive effects and trickle down on a global scale.
See distributive justice; Rawls, John
Further reading: Pogge (ed.) 1989; Rawls 1971, 2001

dirty hands: The problem of involvement in politics – and, in

particular, large-scale responsibility for others – raises
the question of dirty hands – that political action may
involve infringing upon everyday moral codes, deonto-
logical prohibitions and/or human rights. The term was
used by Jean Paul Sartre in his play Les Mains sales.
However, an early discussion of the problem arises in
Machiavelli’s The Prince, in which Machiavelli advises
princes to dissimulate, and to practise cruelty, when the
need arises.
The problem of dirty hands is dissolved if we adopt a
simple consequentialism, according to which we need
only to calculate the consequences of an action, and this
will specify what constitutes a right action. It is then,
simply, right to do whatever is conducive to the best con-
sequences, and, having done the right thing, the sense of
having dirty hands is a moral illusion. Arguably, though,
this is the sort of moral view that has led to millions of
lives being ended in the pursuit of some noble cause or
other – and it is surely a difficulty that right action may
involve huge and unjust sacrifices.
In contrast, squeamishness and an undue deference to
ordinary moral rules may lead those in positions of
responsibility to avoid taking tough decisions in difficult
situations to secure public safety. It may be that political
figures often face irresolvable moral dilemmas, in which
the best outcome involves action that is wrong. Some
have argued that, if this is the case, the mark of the moral
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 49

agent is that she experiences remorse. In the end this

seems to depend on the nature of the world in which we
live: as Machiavelli puts it ‘a prudent ruler cannot, and
must not, honour his word when it places him at a dis-
advantage . . . If all men were good, this precept would
not be good; but because men are wretched creatures
who would not keep their word to you, you need not
keep your word to them’ (The Prince).
Further reading: Coady 1991; De Wijze 2004

discrimination: Very generally, discrimination takes place

whenever one group of people is treated differently from
another group of people. Of course, this happens all the
time, and is not thought usually to involve an injustice.
Architects discriminate between men and women when
they plan separate changing facilities at swimming pools,
and examiners discriminate between students when they
give some high marks and some low marks. So the ques-
tion arises – when is discrimination unjust? The answer
seems to be when the discrimination is on the basis of
some property that is not relevant to the justification of
the practice. So if prizes were awarded only to the fastest
white athletes in a race, this would amount to unjust dis-
crimination, because, whilst being the fastest is relevant
to getting a medal in a running race, being white is irrel-
evant within that contest. For discrimination to be unfair,
it needs to diverge from an account of fairness, and so
judgements about instances of unfair discrimination pre-
suppose an account of justice, and particularly of distrib-
utive justice – of who gets what.
If someone is refused a job because of skin colour, that
looks like unjust discrimination, but if they are refused a
job because of a low level of academic achievement, then
that looks more just, since the idea of distributing attrac-
tive jobs according to the academic qualifications of the
50 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

job seekers seems reasonable, because of the link between

the qualifications and their ability to do the job well.
There are three further qualifications. First, if the grounds
of discrimination are irrelevant to the practice in question
we ought to look at the contingent features of society to
which they do relate. If they are relevant to deep-seated,
long-lasting and acrimonious inequalities, then the discrim-
ination looks more worrying than if the discrimination is on
the basis of some free-floating eccentric discrinatory posi-
tion such as a preference for rasberry ripple ice cream.
Secondly, the process of discrimination might not nec-
essarily involve a conscious intention to discriminate, but
might issue in discriminatory practices, nevertheless. It is
contentious as to whether this is as bad an act as inten-
tional discrimination.
Third, if discrimination on the basis of non-relevant
criteria such as ethnicity is unjust, then what are we to
make of policies that are designed to address injustice by
means of such discrimination, except in an affirmative or
positive way? These seem to fall under the same criteria,
but some might argue that the conception of justice
invoked here is too narrow, and that a wider conception
of justice, pertaining to groups and institutions rather
than individuals, is necessary.
Against the background of a general theory of justice,
such as luck egalitarianism, what counts as fair and unfair
discrimination becomes clear. Unfair discrimination is dis-
crimination on the basis of what someone happens to
be – the characteristics they bear purely by chance. Fair
discrimination is discrimination on the basis of what
people do, and so for what they can be held responsible.
Discrimination, on this account, is one way of holding
someone responsible.
However, there are problems even with this account.
Is it unfair to discriminate against someone in the
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 51

selection of a basketball team because they are, through

no fault of their own, short And what about redressing
imbalances shown to a group of individuals who have
indeed been unfairly discriminated against in the past –
is ‘reverse discrimination’ a legitimate option in these
circumstances?
See distributive justice; justice
Further reading: Edmonds 2006

distributive justice: Area of political philosophy which is con-

cerned with the distribution of assets, benefits, resources
and things between individuals and groups of individu-
als. Generally distributive justice concerns who gets
what, and principles of justice provide an answer to that
question.
In predominantly free-market societies, who gets what
is determined by the outcome of lots of small-scale trades,
so that it might seem as if no overarching principle of
justice is involved. But that would be a mistake – the
overarching principle of justice is that ‘who gets what
ought to be determined by lots of small-scale trades’ and
it can be seen that this immediately conflicts with simple
principles of justice – distribution according to desert,
according to need, according to a priority granted to a
particular group or according to some other pattern of
distribution. What is distinctive about free-market distri-
bution is not the absence of an underlying principle
of justice but the absence of an agent that enforces the
principle.
Debates over distributive justice have involved clashes
between entitlement theories (proposed by Nozick and
others) and Rawlsian theories of patterned distribution
that give priority to the worst off. Others such as Michael
Walzer have questioned the aim of generating general prin-
ciples of distributive justice, arguing that the distribution
52 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

of different resources ought to vary according to the social

meaning of the resources concerned: distribution of health
care, in one sphere, ought not to be determined by the same
principles that determine the exchange of gifts between
friends, for example. Others insist on the need to distin-
guish between choice and chance in the determination
of distributive outcomes, asserting that redistribution
ought to redress inequalities determined by chance, like
the natural lottery, but not those that are an outcome of
choice. Feminists and critical theorists such as Iris Marion
Young have been critical of the ‘distributive paradigm’ –
its focus on the distribution of things rather than identity
constituting attitudes such as respect, and recent theorists
of distributive justice such as Elizabeth Anderson have
expressed concerns that luck-egalitarians miss the point
about equality as a means to avoid oppression.
See Aristotle; desert; entitlement theory; justice; Nozick,
Robert; Rawls, John
Further reading: Nozick 1974; Rawls 1971; Walzer
1983

divine right: A theory of authority explaining the legitimacy

of a political order by reference to God’s intentions or
bequest. Sometimes this is the claim that rule is at God’s
command; sometimes the claim is that the monarch actu-
ally is a God. Divine right theorists argued that monarchs
rule according to the will of God: their authority is not to
be challenged, therefore, by earthly powers, and to ques-
tion or challenge their authority is a way of questioning
or challenging God’s authority. Consequently, political
dissent is a sort of heresy and political opposition is oppo-
sition to God’s will. Divine right theories were specifically
introduced by Augustus into the government of Rome
in order to generate legitimacy for his absolute rule.
Amongst those monarchs who championed divine right
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 53

theories were James I of England and Louis XIV of

France. Theorists of divine right included Sir Robert
Filmer in Patriarcha (1680). Filmer argued for a divine
role in the legitimacy of government in order to explain
the fact of a political relation between the ruler and the
ruled in the absence of, and pre-existing, any contractual
relation.
Divine right theorists came under threat in the six-
teenth century, and were subjected to withering polemi-
cal (and biblical) attack from John Locke in the little-read
First Treatise of Government. As a claim to government
authority divine right is now not a very effective or wide-
spread claim, though it remains the preferred form of jus-
tification in a narrow set of cases, including that of the
Dalai Lama in Tibet.
See absolutism
Further reading: Skinner 1978

division of labour: Process whereby the making of goods or

the provision of services becomes increasingly frag-
mented into separate tasks performed by different indi-
viduals. There are two aspects to it: the extent to which
individuals and families diverge from a model of self-
sufficiency and the fine-grained division of labour in a
modern manufacturing process. The social division of
labour is discussed by Plato in The Republic. The division
of labour in manufacturing is a mark of industrialisa-
tion and of technological change more generally, and
Marxists argue that this change in the relations of pro-
duction unleashes the productive forces for development.
At the same time, the division of labour introduces
further power relations into the productive process, since
the individual labourer has less control over the process
of production (and this leads to alienation) whilst his
contribution is made more and more simple, so that
54 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

labour becomes substitutable – that is, one unskilled

labourer can easily be substituted for another. The
process is sometimes described as de-skilling. According
to critics it leads to alienation and makes it easier to drive
down wages. In contrast, both the social and the manu-
facturing division of labour clearly contribute to speedier
production, and the ability to produce much more
complex artefacts that are beyond the capacity of a single
labourer to produce. The increasing division of labour is
also part of a change that leads to immense increases in
production, with accompanying increases in general
welfare. The relation between the costs and benefits of
the division of labour is therefore complex. However, in
market societies, as Adam Smith points out, the compet-
itive drive towards the further dividing of labour often
seems to sideline normative concerns.
See alienation; capitalism
Further reading: Marx 1844; Van Parijs 1995; Walzer
1983b

dystopia: The opposite of a Utopia – a dystopia is a model or

vision of a world in which lives go badly. In political
thought writers have conjured up dystopias in order to
warn their readers of the dangers of certain particular
social or political developments, or placed dystopia into
their overarching model as a kind of hypothetical reali-
sation of some aspect of human nature. Three different
dystopic visions are Hobbes’s state of nature, Orwell’s
totalitarian picture in 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave
New World.
Hobbes’s state of nature was a hypothetical construct –
a stark picture of a war of all against all, in which life was
poor, nasty, brutish and short. Without a common power
to keep us in check, the basest elements of our nature
would resurface, and neither property nor life would be
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 55

secure. Hobbes’s dystopia is designed to give us a reason

to defer to established authority.
Orwell’s is designed to do the opposite. Characterising
the incipient tendencies towards total control of individ-
ual’s lives, Orwell imagines a society in which we are con-
stantly watched by Big Brother, who directs our lives by
way of a huge state bureaucratic machinery. There is
some resistance to this domination, but the resistance is
futile: Big Brother has the power to make us betray those
we love and to believe that falsehoods are true.
Huxley’s picture is different again, portraying a hierar-
chically divided society in which drugs and virtual inter-
action have taken the place of real interaction with
particular human beings.
Each dystopic vision tells us something about the
world in which we actually live, and provides us with
warnings about our predicament: in this way, we can
construct critical dystopias, just as we can construct crit-
ical utopias, such as Rousseau’s egalitarian participative
democracy – as measuring sticks by which to evaluate
our own societies.
See state of nature
Further reading: Hobbes 1996; Huxley 1932; Orwell
1949

E
entitlement theory: Name given to theories of distributive
justice such as that of Robert Nozick, which are based on
individual entitlements as the bedrock justification of
who gets what. According to entitlement theories, there
is a close moral relationship between me and mine, and
that relationship is established according to some clear
and simple moral rules: I am entitled to what I make with
56 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

raw materials that I own, to what I buy in a fair exchange,

to what is given to me on a voluntary basis, and so on.
Nozick’s slogan is modelled on the form of Marx’s
slogan – from each according to ability, to each accord-
ing to his need, but with radically different import – to
each as he is entitled, from each as he voluntarily decides.
Certain thought experiments make the entitlement
theory more persuasive: the experiment involving Wilt
Chamberlain is thought to show that critics of the enti-
tlement theory must seek to ban capitalist acts between
consenting adults, and considerations about self owner-
ship are designed to carry over intuitions about my
control over my own body onto control over things
that I make. At the heart of the entitlement theory is a
modified form of Locke’s account and justification of
the genesis of private property in the Second Treatise,
which Nozick develops in order to found contemporary
entitlements.
Critics of the entitlement theory ask whether it must be
the case that entitlements have the absolute value that
Nozick and others ascribe to them. Perhaps it is even
the case that entitlements are a starting point, but do
they really trump all other considerations (infringement/
violation distinction)? Others argue that the process of
acquiring absolute entitlements is somewhat murky and
suggest that it is unclear why other moral commitments,
with equivalent intuitive support, fall by the wayside.
Overall, though Nozick’s concern is to present a theory
in which rights to our entitlements act as side constraints
on public policy. The entitlement theory is not so much a
theory of what policy ought to be adopted as one that cir-
cumscribes the areas in which public policy can operate:
politics starts after my entitlements are respected.
See eye lottery; Nozick, Robert; rights
Further reading: Cohen, G. A. 1995; Nozick 1974
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 57

equality: For many political thinkers some form of equality is

a fundamental virtue of a good society, but it is contro-
versial over what sort of equality they have in mind.
Equality is normally a scalar notion – it compares quan-
tities: if I have five apples and you have five oranges we
are equal in the number of fruit, but unequal in the
numbers of oranges. So egalitarians have to answer two
questions: why equality, and equality of what?
Equality is thought to be a moral virtue because of the
fundamental moral equality of persons. On this basis,
what matters about an individual is that he is a single
autonomous and rational being. To the extent that
persons possess these basis properties they count, and
they count for one. This egalitarianism dispenses with
any notions of natural hierarchies in which those who are
nobly born, or of a certain race, or men, or rich, have
privileged access to social political and economic
resources just because of these properties, which are arbi-
trary from the moral point of view.
Political philosophers express this idea in different
ways: utilitarians give evidence of some sort of commit-
ment to equality when they insist that each life is to count
for one in the utilitarian calculus, so that arbitrary privi-
lege is eliminated. But critics of utilitarian thought insist
that equal respect for persons creates constraints on treat-
ing them in some ways that a utilitarian would endorse –
victimising the innocent, for example. Virtue theorists
express a commitment to equality in consideration of
human solidarity and unselfishness as virtues, but also
often endorse the privileging of family and friends above
strangers.
The question of what is to be equalised is fraught with
difficulties and very much hangs on the selection of
measure. Separate entries will cover the main variants.
The spectrum ranges from equality of external resources
58 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

to ‘mere’ equality of respect. Equality of respect is

(arguably) consistent with very widespread economic
inequalities.
Criticisms of equality include its supposed conflict with
political liberty and the supposed absurdity of ‘levelling
down’. Further, it is argued that equality would have
damaging economic and social consequences. Finally,
some have asserted that there are natural hierarchies,
and that these ought to be reflected in just distributive
arrangements.
See capabilities approach; equality of opportunity;
equality of resources; sufficiency
Further reading: Anderson 1999; Clayton and Williams
(eds) 2002; Dworkin 1981a; Dworkin 1981b; Frankfurt
1987; Williams [1969] 2005

equality of opportunity: Equality of opportunity is a principle

which seems widely accepted in political thought, espe-
cially liberal political thought, but its precise meaning is
sometimes unclear. For example, it enters into Rawls’s
scheme as part of the first of the two principles of justice,
lexically prior to the difference principle, and most liberal
thinkers give it centre stage, often counterposing it to
equality of outcome.
Equality of opportunity does not exist if some posts or
roles are arbitrarily reserved for particular groups: the
idea of equality of opportunity is that everyone may have
a fair go at attaining a particular goal. Thus religious
restrictions on civil service jobs, racial restrictions on uni-
versity entrance, and gender restrictions on sporting
activities and so on, all seem to infringe a concern with
equal opportunities. The image that those who draw a
strong contrast between equality of opportunity and
equality of outcome have in mind is that of a running race
in which all start at the same point, and have an equal
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 59

opportunity to win the race, but where the outcome is

varied, according to who performs best.
Critics of equality of opportunity argue, variously, that
this account of equality is substantially meaningless.
Morally arbitrary genetic factors help to determine who
wins a running race, just as morally arbitrary social back-
grounds help to determine who get the top jobs, places
at university and income and privileges. Equality of oppor-
tunity, they say, simply gives a liberal gloss to wide-
ranging and unjust inequalities. Rather more sophisticated
accounts, such as those of luck-egalitarians aim to equalise
between individuals to the extent that outcomes are a
result of luck, and allow inequalities to the extent that they
are a result of the choices of the individuals concerned.
Other critics, including multiculturalists, suggest that
‘opportunity’ is a subject-dependent concept – that cul-
tural and other resources are necessary for individuals
really to take advantage of the opportunities that appear
to face them.
See equality; equality of resources; justice
Further reading: Rawls 1971

equality of resources: If individuals are equally worthy of

respect, and that respect applies to the projects that con-
stitute their lives, then it might appear that individuals
are entitled to an equal share of the earth’s resources.
Portioning up the bundles of resources in this way might
be time consuming, but it might look like the most just
solution to the problem of distributive justice.
Equality of resources, however, faces several powerful
objections. First, since individual’s needs are not equal, a
pattern of equality of resources will diverge from the
pattern needed to secure equal satisfaction of needs or
preferences: the able bodied will gain at the expense of
the unable, and those with more expensive tastes will not
60 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

be able to meet them. Equality of resources will mean

unequal levels of welfare. Equality of resources also
seems to conflict markedly with intuitions about desert
and responsibility. If we insist on equality with respect to
desert, it seems right that those who deserve more get
more. Perhaps those who are responsible for generating
more resources are entitled to a larger share.
If the link between patterns of distribution and indi-
vidual contribution is broken – as equality of resources
suggests, then there will be a disincentive on individual
contributions. If these fall, there will be less of the cake
to go around, so that equal shares will be smaller shares.
These objections come from those who are concerned
with securing distributive equality, but think that equal-
ity of resources measures the wrong thing. But equality of
resources is also open to the criticisms that apply to pat-
terns of distributive justice more generally – that it seems
to infringe self-ownership rights, that it also seems to
imply constant intervention by the redistributive agency,
and so on.
See capabilities approach; desert; entitlement theory;
equality; justice; sufficiency
Further reading: Dworkin 1981a

equality of welfare: In response to criticisms of the notion of

equality of resources, many egalitarian thinkers have
articulated a commitment to equality of welfare as an
alternative measure for securing distributive justice.
Generally the welfare criterion refers to the idea of a
life that goes well, that flourishes, fulfils its potential
and so on, but in welfare economics the idea is rather
more shallow – and more measurable – the satisfaction
of preferences.
The advantages of welfare equality over resource
equality is that it seems better to meet the objection that
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 61

individuals have different projects, and different resource

requirements. But the view is still subject to criticisms –
especially that it endorses a distortion of distribution pat-
terns towards those who have expensive tastes. If I can
only really enjoy expensive champagne and caviar –
all other food tastes dusty and bland – while my neigh-
bour has more mundane culinary preferences, then equal-
ising our welfare will mean shifting the distribution of
resources towards me in a way that seems unjust.
Some advocates of welfare equality (such as Sen)
respond to this objection by attempting to objectify
welfare away from an account of subjective preference
satisfaction towards an account based on objective lists
of capabilities which are generally conducive to a good
life. This account tends to avoid the problem of expen-
sive tastes, but runs the risk of invoking a rather arbi-
trary and essentialist account of what constitutes a good
life.
See equality; equality of resources; justice
Further reading: Clayton and Williams 2002; Dworkin
1981b; Sen 1995

essential/accidental distinction: This distinction, which

comes from Aristotle, allows us to group the properties
of a thing which it must have in order to be that thing,
and the properties which it need not have. It is essential
to a person being that person that they have the parents
that they have: it is not essential that they live in the par-
ticular place where they happen to live. ‘Accidental’ here,
does not convey the idea of unintendedness that it usually
has.
In political philosophy, one of the key disagreements
is over which of the properties of human nature are
essential and which are accidental, and so potentially
specific to a space and time. Hobbes wanted to show that
62 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

self-interested behaviour is essential: Marxists and

Anarchists want to insist that such behaviour is ‘acci-
dental’ and therefore potentially eliminable.
See Aristotle; state of nature
Further reading: Macpherson 1962

express consent: Express consent is consent given explicitly

by a promise to obey the government and laws of a state.
An example of express consent is the ceremony which
naturalised citizens of the USA and the UK undergo when
they become such citizens.
In attempting to answer the question ‘why should
someone obey the law?’, consent theorists often start by
outlining an unproblematic case – express consent –
where the obligation to obey the law comes directly from
a written or spoken agreement to do so. This consent or
agreement is, then, given expressly or explicitly. It is just
like a promise to obey the state, and promises generate
obligations in a relatively straightforward way.
Citizenship rituals often involve something like express
consent. When immigrants to a nation state declare
formal allegiance to that state, or when citizens publicly
declare their loyalty to the state, then it seems straight-
forward to suggest that they thereby undertake an
obligation to obey the laws. Express consent therefore
functions at the core of theories of social contract that
aim to explain the normative basis of the state.
However, if express consent is the key to political
obligation, then all modern states will face problems.
First, the consent that can be given can also be with-
drawn. Second, many individuals do not have the oppor-
tunity to give their express consent. Third, it seems
unlikely that, but for a very few, states were founded
on any such expression of consent. This suggests that
almost all hitherto existing states can be considered as
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 63

illegitimate. For this reason, theorists who aim to set

political obligation on a contractual basis tend to favour
some form of tacit consent as a way of understanding the
obligation to obey the state. But this runs into problems
too, since the conditions of tacit consent do not seem
to map across to the more straightforward case of express
consent. For example, on some accounts of tacit consent,
I can give my consent without knowing that I do so.
Nevertheless, express consent is certainly an important
element in any position designed to secure general polit-
ical obligation, though it is likely now to figure more as
part of a mixed strategy of arguments for such a position.
See consent
Further reading: Nozick 1974

expressive freedom: The freedom to express views, to articu-

late opinions, to publish words and pictures, that is stan-
dard in liberal conceptions of justice. However, the
feminist lawyer Catharine Mackinnon outlines the ways
a commitment to equality (such as in the US 14th
Amendment) might be something against which unfet-
tered freedom of expression ought to give way.
Mackinnon brings together a number of different argu-
ments about the relationship between pornography, hate
speech and freedom of speech. She argues that ‘the law is
insensitive to the damage done to social equality by
expressive means’. This idea that expressive means can
undermine equality seems to contradict the old saying:
‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can
never hurt me’. It suggests that, by their effect on me and
on others, words and images can threaten my position,
restrict my freedom and, in particular, place me in rela-
tions of domination and subservience to others – some
expressive acts undermine relations of equality between
people as individuals and as groups.
64 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

See toleration
Further reading: Mackinnon 1993

eye lottery: This is a thought experiment designed to

highlight some issues in the discussion of distributive
justice.
Suppose a significant minority of the population of a
country are born without eyes. However, medical proce-
dures exist which allow for the generally successful trans-
plantation of eyes from those with two to those with none.
This worsens the position of those donors who have two
eyes, but improves the position of the eyeless. Suppose, too
that the improvement in the position of those who receive
an eye is much greater than the loss to those who lose
an eye. There is a lottery, which selects at random those
who have two eyes, and they are required – forced, if nec-
essary – by the state to undergo the operation to give up
an eye for transplantation.
The eye lottery is designed to be repugnant. However,
some opponents of redistributive taxation regard it as rele-
vantly analogous to redistributive taxation, and argue that
the condemnation of the eye lottery ought to carry over
into condemnation of schemes of redistributive taxation.
They say that the eye lottery models intuitions about self-
ownership rights and about infringements on autonomy,
which speak also against taxation to help the needy.
Advocates of redistributive taxation could bite the
bullet, accepting that there are no moral differences
between the eye lottery and redistributive taxation but
argue that there is nothing wrong with the eye lottery.
They would then advocate a retraining of our moral intu-
itions so that we did not find the thought of the eye lottery
repugnant. Alternatively, and more plausibly, proponents
of redistributive taxation could endorse moral opposition
to the eye lottery but deny its relevance to the case of
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 65

redistributive taxation by citing morally relevant differ-

ences between the two.
See distributive justice; Nozick, Robert; self-ownership
Further reading: Wolff 1991

F
fairness, principle of: The principle of fairness was first for-
mulated by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart in 1955:
‘When a number of persons conduct any joint enterprise
according to rules and thus restrict their liberty, those
who have submitted to these restrictions when required
have a right to a similar submission from those who have
benefited by their submission’ (p. 185). Rawls formulates
a similar principle – that when people engage in a coop-
erative project, and their engagement restricts their
liberty, ‘those who have submitted to these restrictions
have a right to a similar acquiescence on the part of those
who have benefited from their submission’ (1971: 95).
The principle is designed to answer the problem of
political obligation, by showing that non co-operators
have an obligation to go along with the project. But it is
not obvious why this should be the case. Nozick (1974:
93) famously cites a thought experiment in which a
public address system is set up, and operated by members
of the neighbourhood, once a day each year – there are
365 people in this neighbourhood. Although a person
clearly benefits from the public address system which
broadcasts music, interesting talks and so on – there is no
obligation that arises from the fact of its existence as a co-
operative project. This criticism generally points to the
need for consent in the generation of obligations.
See free rider problem; Nozick, Robert
Further reading: Hart 1955; Klosko 1992; Nozick 1974
66 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

false consciousness: Term drawn from Marx to describe the

situation in which individuals or classes are systemat-
ically unaware of, or misunderstand, their own interests,
or, more generally, misperceive the nature of the world in
which they live, or are subject to collective self-deception.
Critical to the idea of false consciousness is an account
of systematic, not haphazard, misperception, and an
attempt to explain this misperception in terms of mater-
ial relations in the world. So, for example, belief in God
is a form of false consciousness, first because there is no
God, but, second, because the belief that there is a God is
systematically produced, because of its capacity to
provide consolation in an inhuman world. As well as
being the opium of the masses, religion is also ‘the sigh of
the oppressed creature’(‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right’, in Marx 1994).
Some feminists have revived Marx’s use to suggest
that women who claim to be happy and fulfilled in a
homemaking role are exhibiting a form of false con-
sciousness.
False consciousness seems often to be explained func-
tionally. It arises because it is good or functional for
some purpose (like the maintenance of elite power).
Possibly there is a conspiracy to keep us dumb. But func-
tional explanations are highly contested, and good ones
require an account of the micro-stories that might under-
lie them. But often these stories take the form of con-
spiracies, and the evidence for such conspiracies is very
often meagre.
False consciousness seems to rest on a fairly specific
account of true interests, and corresponding true con-
sciousness. But the error theory is only as necessary
as the account of true interests is secure. In the abs-
ence of a generally fixed and secure account of true
interests, the claim that individuals are ‘falsely con-
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 67

scious’ sometimes sounds like a charge made in bad

faith.
Further reading: Rosen 2000

fascism: Name given to a social and political movement of

the early half of the twentieth century. Fascism is named
after the fasci – or bundles of sticks which represented
the idea of strength through unity, originating from
Ancient Rome. Fascism drew on several disparate ideas:
ideas of radical nationalism, Nietzchean accounts of the
‘will to power’ and the cult of a leader, Freudian critiques
of rationality, and the notion of a third way to capital-
ism and communism. A central component of most
fascist thought was the importance of the corporate state
driven on by a dominant, strong leader. Racist ideas,
sometimes with a biological basis, are found in some
varieties of fascism, but are less apparent in others. In
each expression of fascism these components were
expressed more or less, and in different combinations –
for example, Mussolini’s fascism was not as essentially
anti-semitic as Nazism. Perhaps the clearest common
element was the idea, as Roger Eatwell puts it, of fascism
as a holistic–national–radical–Third Way. Amongst
philosophical precursors were Nietzche and Georges
Sorel, though in different ways. Amongst supporters
were Martin Heidegger and, briefly, Carl Schmitt.
Further reading: Eatwell 2003

feminism: Feminism in political philosophy involves a com-

mitment to the equality of women, or, in more radical
forms, the emancipation of women. What that equality
means is subject to wide differentiation. Wollstonecraft’s
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is an early
tract arguing for women’s participation in public life and
espousing (against Rousseau) the view that women and
68 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

men are essentially the same and equally rational. Since

the argument of political participation rests on rational-
ity, women ought to have equal rights.
The locus classicus for equal rights feminism is Mill’s
and Harriet Taylor’s The Subjection of Women. This
work is parsimonious in its assumptions about essential
natures, simply arguing for legal equality as a default
position, rather than engaging in a refutation of essen-
tialist claims about male superiority.
Socialist feminism contrasts with liberal feminism in
that it locates the causes of women’s oppression not in
legal disparities but in economic structures of domination
and subordination. Consequently it locates the potential
for women’s emancipation and equal treatment in the
overcoming of those economic relations, rather than in
reform at a strictly legal level.
Radical feminism shifts the focus again to the level of
discourse and ideology rather than legal rights or eco-
nomic structures: its key concept is patriarchy, and many
radical feminists lay an emphasis on the criticism of
aspects of patriarchal culture, such as pornography.
Contemporary feminists often distance themselves
from difference-blind liberalism, attacking it from the
perspective of critical theory. One example is Iris Marion
Young, who argues that the raising of an abstract and
universal model of political participation in fact ignores
difference and so undermines the position of women
and minorities. In fact, Young argues, genuine equality
demands special group rights.
However, for some critics, this can seem to reduce
claims that seem to be just because of their justification
by universal principles into special pleading.
See authority/authoritarianism; patriarchy
Further reading: Okin 1991; Pateman 1988; Young
1990
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 69

Foucault, Michel (1926–84): Foucault was a French theorist

and philosopher of power, discourse and sexuality.
Foucault’s influence has been strong in the social sciences,
and he has directed a critical view towards various social
institutions, including prisons, medicine, psychiatry and
sexuality. However, he is a more minor figure in philoso-
phy as such. Foucault worked within no philosophical
system, nor did he articulate a coherent vision of the
nature of philosophical work or its aim or content.
His thought is often characterised as postmodern,
though this is a label he himself rejected. He is known for
his study of discourse and the relationships between
knowledge and power. Foucauldian approaches take a
social constructivist form, in opposition to an allegedly
oversimple view of truth and explanation as the corres-
pondence between an independent social reality and our
understanding of it.
See postmodernism
Further reading Gutting 2005

foundationalism: The idea that knowledge has secure and

indubitable foundations and that, from these foundations,
a system of secure beliefs can be constructed. Standardly,
the source of secure foundations is thought to be empiri-
cal knowledge, derived from sense experience. Conceived
of as a crude image, foundationalisim is subject to serious
criticism: are our senses indubitable? What are the best
ways of constructing knowledge – must it rely on empiri-
cal foundations? Are not some truths about the world the
product of social construction?
Nevertheless, anti-foundationalist criticism can also
give rise to the abandonment of any criteria by which to
judge knowledge claims, with disastrous results.
See contextualism; postmodernism
Further reading: Boghossian 2006
70 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Frankfurt School: An influential group of European Marxists,

many of them Jewish, which was formed as the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt in 1923
and then took refuge from the Nazis in the USA, forming
the New School for Social Research in New York. Key
figures were Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer and
Theodore Adorno; later adherents include Herbert
Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. Their overall approach
was anti-reductionist and looked critically at the economic
determinism thought to characterise the West European
communist parties in the interwar period. Frankfurt
School theorists were more likely to take cultural texts as
their starting point and their aesthetic focus was a strong
contrast with the economism of the official movement.
More radical still was their take on the Enlightenment and
its universalist and foundational traditions. Frankfurt
School theorists tend to reject the idea that science can be
value free – thus rejecting the scientistic and positivist aspi-
rations of much official Marxism. Rather, they seek to
pursue a critical theory, which is explicitly committed from
the beginning. The Frankfurt School emphasise the role of
consciousness in historical change. Critical theory is at its
most penetrating in Dialectic of Enlightenment
(Horkheimer and Adorno [1947] 2002) which shows
some ways in which the technophile and rational bureau-
cracy of Nazi Germany was able to perpetuate the
Holocaust: scientific rationality did not prove an obstacle
to evil – rather, it enabled evil to triumph.
Thinking in the Frankfurt tradition is still evident,
though increasingly critical theory finds common cause
with the anti-foundational and self-reflexive and cultur-
ally focused elements in postmodernism.
See deliberative democracy; false consciousncess;
Marxism; Habermas, Jürgen; postmodernism
Further reading: Geuss 1981
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 71

free rider problem: Name for a puzzle in both normative

political philosophy and in political analysis and policy
formation. Suppose an individual jumps on a bus into
town, but both does not pay and is not caught by the con-
ductor. What is wrong with this action, and what ought
to be done about it?
Perhaps it is thought that the action is not universalis-
able – if everyone refused to pay, the collective good of
the bus service would disappear. But free rider problems
emerge precisely when others do pay – the free rider is
parasitic on the paying riders. But further, the free rider
does not directly harm any one else: the bus service would
run without him, and his action does not diminish the
amount of the good available for anyone else.
For some (such as H. L. A. Hart), the free rider prob-
lems suggest something like the principle of fairness –
that if I receive some gain from a collective enterprise that
others contribute to then, in fairness, I ought to con-
tribute to that collective effort. The fairness principle
seems to capture an ideal of community solidarity, and
the intertwining of people’s lives which acts as a norma-
tive standard for criticism of free riding. In contrast,
Nozick and other libertarians argue that, if a good is not
solicited in someway, then there is precisely no obligation
to contribute to its supply.
Free rider problems crop up across the series of prob-
lems with which political philosophers concern them-
selves, wherever collective goods or collective action is
susceptible to disruption by individuals who can make
low-cost gains: the non-union worker who refuses to
strike but takes the ensuing pay rise, the tax evader who
uses public services, the cyclist who tucks in behind the
bunch before winning the final sprint. In all these cases
there is a question of unfairness, and the opportunity to
explore strategic and normative solutions, including the
72 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

development of a group ethos against cheating, honour

amongst thieves, the ethics of the peloton, or union trad-
itions of solidarity. Sometimes these will involve post hoc
sanctions taken against the free rider. Nevertheless, these
problems remain intractable.
See fairness, principle of; prisoner’s dilemma
Further reading: Cullity 1995; Gauthier 1986; Hart
1955

functionalism: Functionalism is a form of explanation in the

social sciences that figures in understandings of social and
historical change put forward by Marxists and others.
Suppose that I wish to hang a picture in my living room.
In order to do this, I need to put a screw in the wall, which
requires using a screwdriver. So I take a screwdriver to the
living room. Suppose I am asked, ‘Why is the screwdriver
in the living room?’ It would be true (although more than
a little odd) for me to answer that ‘the screwdriver is in
the living room because it functions in the task of hanging
pictures; its being in the living room helps to satisfy the
need for hanging pictures’. The function of the screw-
driver – the fact that it is good at doing something that
needs to be done – explains its spatio-temporal location.
This is the general form of functional explanations – the
function of an institution, activity and so on is what
explains its existence.
What, though, was odd about the answer above? It
was that the explanation made no reference to my decid-
ing to hang a picture and fetching the screwdriver. It
would be much more straightforward to say that the
screwdriver is in the living room because ‘I fetched it to
hang the picture.’
The functional benefits of the screwdriver are explana-
tory, but only indirectly – only through my desire to hang
a picture and my belief that a screwdriver would be good
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 73

for doing the job. I enter into the story as a purposive

agent, and it is by acting on the screwdriver that I bring
it about that the functional explanation is true. To say
that ‘the screwdriver is in the living room because it
is functional for the task of hanging pictures’ seems to
suggest something that is not true: that it got there on its
own. But there was an obvious mechanism by which the
screwdriver came into the living room.
See analytical Marxism; historical materialism;
Marxism; methodological individualism
Further reading: Cohen, G. A. 1978; Cohen, G. A.
1982; Elster 1982; Elster 1985

G
game theory: Game theory looks at human interaction in a
variety of formal ways to show up the mutual interde-
pendence of our actions and the way that rational actions
might have consequences quite different from those
intended by the actor.
See assurance game; prisoner’s dilemma; zero–sum game
Further Reading: Hampton 1986

general will: Term most associated with Rousseau and his

canonical work: the Social Contract. The general will is
the key category of Rousseau’s thought. Political society,
rather than being an assemblage of the separate and indi-
vidual concerns of individuals, brings into place a new
phenomenon – the general will. This refers to what is,
objectively, in all our interests taken as a whole. It is the
duty of a citizen to seek out and obey the general will, and
the best way to do this is usually to vote. But the voting
must be entered into in the right spirit – as individuals
genuinely seek to understand and support what is in the
74 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

best interests of the social whole. For Rousseau, the

general will cannot err, but we can err in trying to dis-
cover what it is. Once the general will is established,
however, the question of political obligation is resolved.
This problem, which arose from the appearance that
to obey political authority is a denial of autonomy, is
removed if we understand that in obeying the general will
we are only obeying ourselves. Those who do not act
according to the general will ought to be forced to do so,
thinks Rousseau, though this only amounts to forcing
them to be free.
The idea of a general will is present in Hegel and
the notion of acting for the common good is found in
the later British Idealists such as T. H. Green and Bernard
Bosanquet. Berlin and other liberal pluralists are sceptical
of the notion of the general will and regard it as poten-
tially coercive, and the bluntness of Rousseau’s prescrip-
tions now seem disfavoured. However, there are more
liberal and egalitarian readings of Rousseau, according
to which the generality of the general will is an obstacle
against the unjust picking out of, for example, groups
defined ethnically or by sex.
See Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Further reading: Bertram 2003; Dent 2005

globalisation: Globalisation – which can be glossed as the

phenomenon of increasing interconnectedness across the
globe – has become of great importance in the last two
decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its associ-
ated states as well as the rapid development of commu-
nication technologies has led to the growth of a global
village. The impact of this phenomenon on positions
taken within political philosophy is complex: some see
globalisation as providing a basis for the emergence of
a cosmopolitan governing order, and a cosmopolitan
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 75

conception of justice. Part of the institutional structure

that is relevant here is the International Criminal Court.
Critics of globalisation see it as the expansion of specif-
ically US and specifically capitalist hegemony over much
of the world, bringing with it widespread exploitation
and increasing global inequality, and cultural imperial-
ism. The truth is more complicated – though undoubt-
edly changing communication technologies have
transformed and in some cases undermined national
identities
See cosmopolitanism; nationality

Green political philosophy: A concern with other creatures is

not a wholly new feature of political thought, but a
serious engagement with issues concerning our obliga-
tions to the environment is a recent phenomenon, at least
within the Western tradition.
This concern has been motivated by a new under-
standing of our obligations to future generations and a
less anthropocentric understanding of what counts for
moral consideration. This second phenomenon has led to
a widening of the ‘circle of concern’ from human beings
to other species, of sentient creatures, to plants and
finally to the overall environment itself – mountains,
rivers, the rain forests and so on.
A widening of the circle of concern raises the question
why we should concern ourselves with such things. There
are two views: the first is that our non-human surround-
ings are of moral value in themselves; the second is that
our non-human surroundings are of value because of the
moral value they generate in human beings. The difference
between these positions can be brought out by considering
‘last man’ arguments. Suppose the last man on earth, who
is himself about to perish, takes a flame thrower to some
plants – perhaps rare and beautiful ones. Would he have
76 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

committed a moral wrong? Some ‘intrinsic value’ theorists

would be committed to saying yes, even though (ex
hypothesi) no harm was done to human interests, no
human needs went unmet.
The distinction between intrinsic and instrumental val-
uation of the moral worth of the environment gives rise
to a distinction between ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’ green theo-
ries: the terms originate from Arne Naess. Shallow envir-
onmentalism derives concern for the environment from
concern about human beings. Deep environmentalism
involves what Ness terms ‘the equal right to live and
blossom’ of all forms of life – a commitment to equal
rights sometimes known as biospheric egalitarianism.
This is sometimes thought to be open to the objection
that the smallpox virus ought not to be attributed the
same rights as less harmful forms of life.
See anthropocentrism
Further reading: Carter 1999; Naess 1989

H
Habermas, Jürgen (1929–): German philosopher and soci-
ologist, a student of Theodore Adorno. Habermas can
perhaps be thought of as a second generation member
of the Frankfurt School, particularly in his earlier
career. But this was a two-edged legacy: Habermas took
on the Marxist influence of the Frankfurt school partic-
ularly in his work on the ‘legitamation crisis’ of the late
twentieth century: political legitimacy rather than
production was the site of the Marxist theory of crisis.
In other theoretical work Habermas looks for a unity
of rationally acceptable emancipatory discourses that
can transcend academic specialisation and theoretical
relativism
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 77

In The Theory of Communicative Action ([1981]

1984) Habermas outlines the idea of an ‘ideal speech-
situation’ in which progress can be made towards the
truth by means of rational argumentation under condi-
tions of autonomy. The speech act account of criteria for
truth gives rise to discussion of and endorsement of
some form of deliberative democracy in Habermas’s
work. This is further extended in his major work
Between Facts and Norms (1996) and within his debate
with Rawls over the development of Rawls’s views into
political liberalism.
See autonomy; deliberative democracy; Frankfurt school
Further reading: Habermas 1986; Habermas 1996

harm principle: Anti-paternalist principle of J. S. Mill. The

principle states that the only purpose for which we may
intervene in the action of another against their will is to
prevent harm to others. Such harm is a necessary (though
not a sufficient) condition of intervention. Those actions
that do not affect others – self-regarding actions – may
not be prohibited. The principle therefore respects indi-
vidual autonomy. For example, it lies behind the view
that any sort of consenting sexual acts between adults
ought to be allowed. Some version of the harm principle
is central to liberalism, because it defines a limit for the
state against the autonomous individual.
Mill’s principle is that intervention into our lives is only
ever justifiable if our actions are causing, or likely to
cause, harm to others. Harm to others is the test – the
threshold that must be passed, if there is to be any dis-
cussion about whether the state should intervene. The
principle is more restrictive than it might at first appear.
It does not say that the state should intervene whenever
others are harmed; some sorts of harm to others might
still be permitted. It is a negative principle, arguing that
78 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

when there is no harm to others there is no question of

intervention. It looks like an anti-paternalist dictum: we
should not interfere with people’s lives in order to save
them from themselves.
But the ‘one simple principle’ only starts the ball
rolling: it outlines a set of actions – those that are ‘self-
regarding’ in which the government has no legitimate
interest. But are there any such actions? Is the set of
actions that are self-regarding an empty one? If there are
no self-regarding actions, the principle is empty.
For Mill, the principle is justified by its contribution to
overall utility, and this connection is contentious: are
autonomous individuals necessarily happier than less
autonomous ones? Critics have also asked what is to count
as harm. If ‘mere offence’ (such as the offence caused by
unusual consenting sex) is to be excluded, why is this?
See autonomy; liberalism; Mill, John Stuart; utilitari-
anism.
Further reading: Raz 1986

Hayek, Friedrich August von (1899–1992): Hayek was pri-

marily an economist, but has made a significant contri-
bution to political philosophy as well. Perhaps best
known for his condemnation of state planning as ‘the
road to serfdom’ Hayek claims that capitalism is the best
bulwark against tyranny. This is partly because of an
epistemological point – reason and information process-
ing abilities are limited, and the workings of a complex
industrial or post-industrial society are simply unknow-
able both in practice and in principle. Decisions taken by
agents within the economy, including the agency of
the state, generate outcomes, but those outcomes are
unknowable in advance. Rather than attempting to inter-
vene within the market – an approach that has a political
and social dynamic to ever more intervention – the state
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 79

should restrain itself, and let the free flow of information

that is generated by free markets become more general.
The claim that the more free the market, the stronger
are liberal rights, looks both contingent, and sometimes
false. Scandinavian social democracies evidence both
high levels of state intervention and strong civil liberties,
whilst some neo-liberal experiments have been accompa-
nied by political repression.
See capitalism; liberalism; libertarianism; Nozick,
Robert
Further reading: Gray1986; Hayek 1944; Hayek1988

Hegel, G. W. F. (1770–1831): German idealist political

philosopher, who revolutionised political philosophy,
laid down some tracks along which Marx would follow,
and established idealism as an essential part of the canon.
Hegel’s system derives from the theory of the dialectic –
a complex process that essentially involves the increasing
determination of an undifferentiated subject through pro-
cesses of negation and conflict. This is the root to knowl-
edge – as the concept becomes increasingly determinate, it
also becomes knowable. However, this process is delayed
– the ‘Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only at dusk’ (that
is, wisdom can only be gained in retrospect [Hegel (1820)
1991]). The process of the dialectic is not only a process of
pure thought. Because ‘what is real is rational’ it is also –
as the term idealism suggests – the structuring principle of
the world.
Hegel’s political philosophy is found in The
Philosophy of Right – a difficult work, but one with many
insights on property, freedom, alienation, the family and
the state. For Hegel, private property is a condition of
freedom, the family is a paradigm of non-contractual
allegiance (and marital love exemplifies the dialectical
emergence of a subject that is a ‘we’). For Hegel, the state
80 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

is the highest manifestation of freedom which arises from

the transcendence of the family and civil society – neither
the particularity of the family nor the atomisation of civil
society really match up to the fully realised free individ-
ual in the state.
After Hegel’s death, his supporters split into Right and
Left Hegelians – the former emphasised his foreground-
ing of the obligations to the state, the latter emphasising
his account of alienation and the master–slave dialectic.
Marx’s own contribution was only made possible by
Hegel.
See alienation; Marx, Karl; property
Further reading: Knowles 2002; Taylor 1975

historical materialism: Name given to the approach to

history of Karl Marx and later Marxists, but not used by
Marx himself to describe his method. Historical materi-
alism also refers to a rather codified and formulaic doc-
trine associated with the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, and twinned with dialectical materialism in the
History of the Soviet Union (Short Course). It is difficult
to separate the ideas of Marx from their later codifica-
tion, but it is worth the attempt. Marx’s view is expressed
in an early version in Part 1 of the German Ideology, and
has its most succinct codification in the 1859 Preface to
a Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy. In
that text Marx claims that the productive forces, which
develop though technical change, are first encouraged
then constrained by the productive relations that cover
them. When the strain becomes too much, a revolution-
ary overthrow of the productive relations takes place.
This ushers in a new set of productive relations under
which the productive forces can begin to develop again.
An influential recent interpretation – that of G. A.
Cohen has it that the relation between productive relations
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 81

and productive forces is functional – that the relations take

the form they do because thereby they encourage the devel-
opment of the forces of production, and this functional
account has been the target of criticism. More generally,
Marx’s account is thought by some critics to be overly
reductionist, missing out the many and varied sources of
historical change and reducing them to economic and tech-
nological changes. Moreover, however useful Marx’s
account has been in analysing historical changes, it has not
had a happy record at successful prediction.
Further reading: Cohen, G. A. 1978

Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679): An English philosopher

whose major work in political philosophy is Leviathan
(1651). Other important works include De Cive (1642)
and The Elements of Law (1640). Leviathan provides a
justification of near-absolute authority based not on a
natural hierarchy but on a materialist and mechanical
account of humankind. Hobbes’s concern is not to show
that everyone is fundamentally selfish, but that when
everything is permitted (by the ‘right of nature’) the
ensuing uncertainty, and the actions of a vain-glorious
minority justify pre-emptive action. Understanding human
beings in this way, Hobbes considers that life without a
social authority would be appalling. Life in this hypothet-
ical state of nature would famously be ‘poor, nasty, brutish
and short’. Recognising this, men ought to assent to a
common power, and transfer their rights to that sovereign
power, once and for all. They ought to recognise and obey
the ‘laws of nature’, which are, amongst other things,
guidelines for peaceful existence. This sort of reasoning,
Hobbes argues, combines prudence with morality. On this
view, morality is a construction of rational individuals
pursuing their own interests. The authority of the sover-
eign is only nearly, not fully, absolute, because it does not
82 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

include the power to make an individual complicit in their

own death: the authority of the state is derived from the
authority of the individual over themselves, and there are
limits to how far this can be transferred to a sovereign. In
this way and others, such as the use of the device of the
social contract, and the attempt to provide a rational jus-
tification of state power, Hobbes is a precursor of the
liberal tradition, and he provides a foil for that tradition,
most notably Locke. However, his position is also conge-
nial to conservatism, since it prescribes obedience to exist-
ing authority.
See absolutism; political obligation; right of nature;
social contract; state of nature
Further reading: Gauthier 1977; Gauthier 1986;
Hampton 1986

Hohfeld, Werner (1879–1918): American jurist and philoso-

pher of law, best known for his analytical account of
rights Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in
Judicial Reasoning, published in 1919, in which he shows
that rights are correlatives of duties. For Hohfeld this is
not a substantive claim (unlike the claim of some polit-
ical communitarians today that ‘we should concentrate
more on responsibilities than rights’) but an analytical
claim about the meaning of words. If X has a right to A
then others have a duty towards X (not to interfere with
X’s getting or doing A). This sense of a right meaning
a correlative duty is the key to Hohfeld’s thought.
However, he also wanted to break down the notion of a
right into particular components. There were four kinds
of rights and four kinds of duties. Rights break down into
claim-right, privilege, power and immunity, and each has
correlates: duty, no-right, liability and disability.
In his analysis, Hohfeld distinguishes, for example,
between a ‘claim-right’ and a ‘power’. A claim-right on
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 83

the part of X requires a duty on the part of Y, but a power,

the ability of X to do something (vis-à-vis Y), requires a
liability on the part of Y. Hohfeld stipulated the opposites
(not correlates) of the four key rights claim-right, privi-
lege, power and immunity as not-claim-right, duty, dis-
ability and liability. Hohfeld’s analysis is the subject of
ongoing philosophical argument, over what exactly the
relations of correlativity involve. But it has proved influ-
ential in the study of both legal and moral rights, because
it prescribes a generally helpful analytical programme.
Each ordinary language right – such as the right to private
property – can be unravelled into a nest of relationships –
claim-rights and powers, immunities and privileges.
Justifying a right becomes a much more complicated
business, in some ways easier – since sometimes it is
simply a matter of denying that X has a duty not to do
whatever it is he is supposed to have a claim-right to do.
At other times, it is much more than this, but the notion
of a full right can be built up from these analytical foun-
dations. Certainly, Hohfeld’s analysis is important to
much contemporary work in political philosophy, such as
the arguments for left-libertarianism, which endorse self-
ownership rights but deny that these rights entail endors-
ing absolute rights over property. This disaggregative
approach to property rights relies on something like
Hohfeld’s account.
See rights
Further reading: Steiner 1994; Wenar 2005

Hume, David (1711–76): Perhaps the most important

philosopher of the eighteenth century. Hume’s contribu-
tion to political philosophy is fertile, though unsystem-
atic. In his essay Of the Original Contract, Hume
criticises those such as Locke who explain our allegiance
to a political society in terms of a contract. Hume’s
84 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

critique is at least in part historical, but also contains a

famous thought experiment in which he compares resi-
dence in a country to remaining on a ship. In neither case,
he suggests, can legitimate authority be deduced from the
fact that the individual remains in the same place: tacit
consent does not justify political obedience. In contrast,
he argues that the only justification for obedience is
derived from utility, so laying the basis for the defences
of utilitarianism from Bentham and Mill.
Hume provides a utilitarian defence of private property
and private rights, necessary, he thinks, for justice. In An
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals he outlines
the circumstances of justice in an account which is the locus
classicus of contemporary discussion. Hume was a Tory,
and adopted a sceptical approach to political matters: his
preferred constitution was for a mixed republican and
monarchic system, for which Great Britain was the model.
See Circumstances of Justice
Further reading: Miller 1981

I
income rights see control/income rights

infringement/violation distinction: Distinction drawn by

Judith Jarvis Thomson between two ways in which
someone’s rights may be affected. If someone has a right
that p, and p is made false, then their right that p is
infringed. However, it is only violated if the act of making
p false was wrong. The distinction therefore means that
it is possible to infringe someone’s rights without acting
wrongly – so it is possible to infringe but not violate
someone’s rights. The distinction is denied by advocates
of absolute rights such as Nozick.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 85

See deontology; entitlement theory; Nozick, Robert;

rights
Further reading: Thomson 1990

interest theory of rights: Version of a rights-founding theory

that founds rights on vital interests – as the political
philosopher Joseph Raz puts it: ‘X has a right if and only
if X can have rights and, other things being equal, an
aspect of X’s well-being (his interest) is a sufficient reason
for holding some other person(s) to be under a duty’ (Raz
1986: 166).
The interest theory does seem to cope well with the
problem of unwaivable rights and it allows the ascription
of rights to incompetents.
However, it does not fit with other common consider-
ations about rights. It seems that it is possible for me to
have an interest in x without it being the case that I have
any rights about x. Equally, I have rights that don’t seem
to relate to any strong interests. As well as Raz, advocates
of an interest theory of rights include Jeremy Bentham
and John L. Austin.
See Hohfeld, Werner; rights
Further reading: Raz 1986; Waldron (ed.) 1985

intergenerational justice: The question of intergenerational

justice is taxing political philosophers increasingly. It
seems clear that our actions have long-lasting effects
upon our environment, which are likely to worsen the
situation in which future generations find themselves.
What sort of obligations can we have to future gener-
ations?
Obligations seem to arise from our interactions with
other people – so that, for example, if Eddie borrows
some money from Joe and promises to pay him back,
then Eddie is thereby under an obligation to pay Joe back.
86 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

If this is the model of ‘coming under an obligation’ then

it might seem reasonable to say that we only have obli-
gations to people who do or say things to us.
But it is common now to hear something different from
politicians and especially environmentalists who resist,
for example, policies that adversely affect the biosphere
in the long term, because of the possible effect on future
generations. Depletion of fossil fuels, damage to the
ozone layer, and other environmental harms impact
much more on future generations than they do on us. The
Kyoto Accord is one example of international agreements
intended to honour our obligations towards future
generations.
It might be possible to avoid the particular issue of
distant generations here by recourse to some empirical
predictions. It might be said that we ought to preserve
fossil fuels just for the sake of our immediate children –
or for the sake of reducing congestion now. Then, we
would not need to cite the interests of distant genera-
tions in support of environmental protection. So we
could favour restrictions on the use of fossil fuels just for
the sake of our children. But if this is the case, why isn’t
our moral concern equally applicable to our children’s
children and, by induction, to all following generations.
The point can also be put negatively. If we have weaker
moral commitments to those in the remote future, why
do those commitments strengthen as the future is less
remote?
If obligations only arise from things people do or say
to us, then we have no obligations to future generations,
since future generations cannot do or say anything to us.
So if we have obligations to future generations, it can’t be
true that obligations only arise from things people do and
say to us.
Further reading: Barry 1995; Parfit 1982
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 87

J
justice: The question ‘What is justice?’ – which opens Plato’s
Republic – is one of the constitutive questions of political
philosophy. For many, following Rawls, justice is the first
virtue of social institutions.
For Aristotle in the Politics, justice counts as treating
equals equally and unequals unequally. Justice, on this
line, is to do with non-arbitrary, consistent treatment
according to the morally relevant properties of the case
in question. This directs attention to disagreements about
what the morally relevant properties are: are needs or
desert the morally relevant property in determining the
distribution of scarce medical resources? Perhaps the
morally relevant property will vary according to what it
is that we are distributing – as Walzer argues. And, while
there is much more work to be done, Aristotle’s idea is a
very good start, and provides a way of understanding of
what unjust discrimination might entail.
Aristotle’s division into corrective justice, rectificatory
justice and distributive justice is useful, though does not
divide the subject up into equally important parts: the
primary concern in contemporary politics has been with
the last of these. However, there has been some criticism
of this focus – Iris Young has criticised the dominance of
the ‘distributive paradigm’ in considerations of justice
and injustice, and argued for greater consideration to be
given not to inequalities of income and resources but to
oppression, status and questions of humiliation and
shaming.
See Aristotle; circumstances of justice; desert; discrim-
ination; distributive justice; intergenerational justice;
Locke, John; Marx, Karl; needs; Nozick, Robert; Rawls,
John; Walzer, Michael
Further reading: Barry 1995; Rawls 1971
88 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

K
Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804): A German philosopher of the
Enlightenment, whose moral theory provides the foun-
dation for much contemporary liberal philosophical
thought. Kant’s central contribution to political philoso-
phy is in his articulation of a deontological moral theory
(see deontology) and a kind of contractualism (see cate-
gorical imperative) which forms the basis of much con-
temporary liberal thinking about politics. Substantially,
Kant was an opponent of despotism, a theorist of cos-
mopolitan justice and an innovator in theorising relations
between states.
According to Kant, the attitude of enlightened despo-
tism might be appropriate to immature children who lack
the capacity to know what is in their interests, but it is
not appropriate for adults who can determine how they
themselves can be happy. This despotism denies the active
nature of human beings and their capacity to make and
to act on their own judgements about how their lives
should be. This capacity ought only to be constrained by
the granting of rights to others to do the same within a
general principle. For example, if my happiness is only
secured by lopping off the heads of my fellow citizens,
this activity will fall outside the framework of a workable
general law – I couldn’t grant the same head-lopping
rights to others.
According to Kant, equality before the law is compati-
ble with inequality in other areas of life, such as in prop-
erty. His argument for this is that the law ‘is the
pronouncement of the general will’ so it can only be
‘single in form’ and it concerns ‘the form of right and not
the material or object in relation to which I possess rights’
(Kant [1793] 1991). The form of right can outline what
rules apply to individuals, but it cannot refer to particular
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 89

individuals, with particular property holdings. If we were

to take inequalities of property into account, we would
have to introduce particular accounts of property hold-
ings into the law, and so it would fail to be general.
Kant argues in Perpetual Peace (1795) for a universal
kingdom of ends – beyond the capacity of any nation
state, which would require a sort of cosmopolitan world
government and the withering away of the nation state.
This internationalism is one of the most attractive fea-
tures of his political views.
See categorical imperative; cosmopolitanism;
deontology
Further reading: Flikschuh 2000; O’Neill 1990

Kymlicka, Will: Canadian philosopher known for his

attempts to incorporate multicultural concerns into
liberal political philosophy. His overall driving concern
is with the importance of cultural resources for enabling
autonomy. Liberals, says Kymlicka, ‘should care about
the viability of societal cultures because they contribute
to people’s autonomy and because people are deeply con-
nected to their own culture’ (Kymlicka 1995: 94).
There are two things to notice about this: first, that
Kymlicka justifies concern for cultural viability in terms
of a separate value, so the justification is an instrumen-
tal justification. Second, the value that plays this justifi-
catory role is a liberal one, autonomy. Kymlicka is
explicit about this: ‘what matters, from a liberal point
of view, is that people have access to a societal culture
which provides them with meaningful options encom-
passing the whole range of human activities’ (ibid.:
102).
This suggests that the viability of cultures is a concern
for liberals only insofar as they are vehicles for the pro-
motion of autonomy – perhaps a one-dimensional view
90 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

of the concern for cultural viability. Further, the justifica-

tion for fostering cultural viability offered by the theorist
seems out of line with the justification offered by the
member of the cultural group itself: it is unlikely that a
member of the cultural group would argue that the exis-
tence and viability of her culture was important ‘in order
to enhance my set of options and my resources for auton-
omy’. Rather, the value of the culture for her would come
from its specificity (that it is her culture) and this seems
to be intrinsic rather than instrumental. On one reading,
the liberal theorist appears to be checking off societal cul-
tures against a list, passing or failing them on their con-
tribution to autonomy, and allocating political resources
on this basis. As a result, it seems that Kymlicka’s justifi-
cation of policies for cultural viability involves ‘one
thought too many’ – just as Williams argues of the utili-
tarian justification of avoidance of punishment of the
innocent (Smart and Williams 1973).
See multiculturalism
Further reading: Kymlicka 1995

L
levelling-down: The levelling-down objection is directed at
one sort of policy proposal designed to secure equality.
Objectors tend to argue that if the aim is equality, then it
is fine to level up, by enhancing the position of the least
well off, but it makes no sense to level down: the least
well off do not gain, and those who are better off lose out
for no reason. The levelling-down objection seems to
suggest that some ways of securing equality are both
wasteful – because the surplus must be disposed of – and
spiteful, driven by envy – since the least well off make no
material gain. In this respect it has some affinities with the
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 91

harm principle and the Lockean proviso on original

appropriation: it seems that no one gains from opposition
to these normative positions, and that is why they are
rationally held normative positions. It is because of the
levelling-down objection that John Rawls permits
inequalities to exist under the difference principle, so long
as their existence benefits the least well off.
But there is something to be said, nevertheless, to rebut
the levelling-down objection. First, there are often pro-
cesses which feedback harmfully from supposedly justi-
fied inequalities to those who are worst off. Secondly, the
supposed benefits of inequalities to the worst off can be
slippery. But at a normative level, the objection discounts
equality as a value of independent moral worth, attempt-
ing to cash it out into utility gains. This runs counter to
the concern of some egalitarians who favour equality not
because it can be cashed out in this way, but simply
because it represents an underlying moral truth – the
moral equality of persons.
See equality
Further reading: Swift 2001; Temkin 1993; Temkin
2002

lexical priority: Lexical priority (or lexicographical priority) is

a term found in Rawls’s Theory of Justice, and used in dis-
cussion of Rawls’s theory and liberal egalitarianism. It
refers to priority rules like those found in a dictionary. All
the words beginning with A precede all those beginning
with B. Then, words are ordered according to their second
letter. So ordering according to the first letter of a word
takes place before ordering according to the second letter
of a word. In a similar way, Rawls’s first principle of
justice, which concerns equal rights to basic liberties, is
lexically prior to the second principle of justice, which con-
cerns distribution of social and economic goods. The first
92 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

principle of justice specifies a distribution of rights, which

sets constraints on the distribution of social and economic
inequalities: the first principle is lexically prior to the
second. The point of these priority relations is to prevent
trade-offs between rights and just distribution patterns.
An account of justice which involves a plurality of
principles with priority relations between them can be
contrasted with a conception of justice based on a single
principle, such as classical utilitarianism.
See difference principle; distributive justice; justice;
Mill, John Stuart; original position; Rawls, John
Further reading: Rawls 1971

liberalism: A family of ideas which have come to be closely

related, though there are varieties of liberalism, some of
which are antagonistic to each other. It is perhaps such an
unstable notion that it ought to be seen as an essentially
contested concept along the lines that W. B. Gallie suggests.
Foundational to liberalism is the idea of individual
liberty, which is sometimes problematically characterised as
‘negative liberty’ though liberals certainly view autonomy
as a central value. Liberals tend to accept some argument for
the legitimacy of state institutions and for an obligation to
obey them – differentiating themselves from anarchists.
However, they often argue for a separate sphere of human
rights, which may not be violated by a government regard-
less of its level of popular support for doing so – differenti-
ating themselves from absolutists and authoritarians.
Liberals favour state neutrality between different compre-
hensive conceptions of the good, and tend to assert the pri-
ority of the right over the good (though there are
perfectionist liberals), in particular asserting the importance
of the public/private distinction. Liberalism is also marked
by a toleration of difference, and by concern for freedom of
thought, freedom of expression and equality before the law.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 93

Liberalism fits well with democracy, because of its vol-

untaristic account of political power, though it is com-
patible with a variety of forms of democracy.
Historically liberalism has several roots – the account
of limited government in Locke, Kant’s account of respect
for persons, and J. S. Mill’s attempt to reconcile utilitari-
anism with democracy and a private sphere. Today,
because it generally opposes a comprehensive theory of
the good, liberalism tends to be secular.
It is also important to note a contrast between classical
liberalism – the liberalism, for example, of Locke – and
modern liberalism as represented by John Stuart Mill,
L. T. Hobhouse, T. H. Green, which is much more inter-
ventionist and redistributive. Here the antagonisms
within liberalism surface: some see welfarism as unjustly
interfering with individual liberty, others maintain that a
proper concern for substantial liberty on the part of indi-
viduals necessitates welfarist interventions.
Communitarian critics of liberalism urge that we take
seriously the way that individuals are embedded into
social contexts in a way that (arguably) liberals cannot
do. Marxist critics suggest that liberalism rests on an
implausibly shallow theory of human nature which
assumes the permanent existence of the circumstances of
justice, when, rather, the task is to abolish them.
See absolutism; anarchism; authority/authoritarian-
ism; democracy; Kant, Immanuel; Locke, John; Mill,
John Stuart; rights; utilitarianism; voluntarism
Further reading: Waldron 1987

libertarianism: A position in political philosophy which fore-

grounds individual liberty as the sovereign virtue of a
political system. Libertarianism comes in left- and right-
wing variants, but both tend to insist on self-ownership,
and on some sort of voluntarism in accounts of political
94 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

obligation. Right-libertarianism, which is more familiar

and more politically influential is marked by strong hos-
tility towards the welfare state, towards redistribution
and towards what is seen as unwarranted state interfer-
ence into the private lives of citizens. Its proponents
are generally relaxed about inequalities of income and
wealth, resulting as they do from the impersonal work-
ings of the market. For some libertarians, taxation is
often seen, not merely polemically but actually, as theft.
Again, two variants can be distinguished within this
variety of political thought – economic libertarianism
and social libertarianism. Economic libertarians oppose
taxation and state legislation in the market place: they
will tend to be sceptical about the claim that background
inequalities vitiate supposedly free exchange. Social lib-
ertarians oppose the imposition of moral codes onto
private activities – they tend to oppose restrictions on
drugs, pornography and firearms – and this can lead to
some tensions with those who are otherwise their allies
on the political right. Amongst the right libertarians –
though with qualifications – are found Robert Nozick
and Jan Narveson. Politically, libertarians sometimes cite
the influence of Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist.
Left-libertarians also advocate self-ownership, but they
seek to reconcile it with some sort of welfare equality, and
they do not necessarily oppose state intervention and
resource redistribution. The reconciliation between self-
ownership and redistribution can be achieved by employ-
ing the control/income rights distinction, or by adjusting
access to holdings so that self-ownership ensures equal
outcomes, or by some egalitarian distribution of re-
sources in the first place.
Libertarians direct sharp questions at the liberal-
egalitarian mainstream in political philosophy, and have
some real-world political influence.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 95

See control/income rights; Nozick, Robert; rights; self-

ownership
Further reading: Nozick 1974

Locke, John (1632–1704): English philosopher, teacher and

quiet rebel. Locke’s key works in political philosophy are
the two Treatises of Civil Government – particularly the
second – and the Letter on Toleration.
These texts are an indispensable part of the basis of lib-
eralism. In the Second Treatise, Locke presents an argu-
ment based on a social contract and natural rights, which
prescribes limited government, the separation of powers
and a right to rebel on the part of the governed. Locke’s
work also contains important defences of the right to
private property and a voluntaristic account of the duty to
obey the state which incorporates the idea that we express
our consent tacitly. According to Locke, ultimate author-
ity rests with individuals, and is transferred in a contract
to the community, which then lends it, on trust, and under
certain conditions, to the government. This process
secures legitimacy, but only of a limited sort, hemmed in
by the conditions of the loan, and by the natural rights of
the individuals in the first place. Locke’s account thus pro-
vides a response to both absolutists and anarchists, and is
the starting point of much liberal thinking on the state.
His Letter on Toleration is one of the best arguments
for religious toleration, making general arguments about
the freedom of worship and more philosophical ones
about the possibility of changing an individual’s beliefs
through persecution.
Locke was, in addition, a philosopher who had much
to say about language, belief, knowledge and meta-
physics though his immense contribution – particularly in
the Essay concerning Human Understanding – does not
always cohere easily with his political works.
96 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

He has been the target of criticism from both the left

and the right. C. B. Macpherson saw him as the ideolo-
gist of market individualism, though at the time, with the
redating of the Second Treatise (see contextualism) he
was a radical figure. Others on the right have redrawn
Locke’s account of private property and made him a
much stronger advocate of libertarian conceptions of
property than seems plausible.
See authority/authoritarianism; Hobbes, Thomas; lib-
eralism; property; rights; voluntarism
Further reading: Simmons 1994; Tully 1993

luck egalitarianism: Luck egalitarianism is a position in dis-

tributive justice associated with figures like Dworkin and
Cohen, according to which the proper aim of distributive
justice is to equalise outcomes with respect to luck – so
that a person who is struck by lightning receives health-
care and compensation – but not with respect to the
choices of social agents – so that a person who chooses to
surf rather than work ought not to receive compensation
for that choice. Luck egalitarians commonly distinguish
between brute luck and option luck, and they need to rely
on the ability to distinguish between choice and chance.
Further reading: Cohen, G. A. 2000; Dworkin 1981a;
Dworkin 1981b

M
Machiavelli, Niccolo (1469–1527): A diplomat and histo-
rian, in service to a series of Florentine rulers. His best-
known work is The Prince, which falls under a general
genre of ‘mirror to princes’, or guide books on statecraft.
It is an indirect response to Cicero’s De Officiis, and crit-
icises the idea that it is appropriate for the prince simply
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 97

to practise the Christian virtues. Rather, because of his

responsibilities in a world of conflict, antagonism and
duplicity, the prince ought to be prepared to be ruthless
and to dissimulate. Machiavelli argues that the virtuous
prince is very different from the virtuous commoner, and
needs to avoid squeamishness when situations require
that he acts in a way contrary to ordinary morality.
It is possible to see a consequentialist approach to
Machiavelli’s claims in The Prince, and it is plausibly
viewed as a contribution to the debate on dirty hands,
and on the needs of powerful men, for example, in times
of war, to make difficult decisions that will inevitably lead
to some deaths, in violation of normal deontological
constraints. Whether The Prince also validates other less
justified actions is open to question.
Apart from The Prince, which says little about forms
of government, Machiavelli is becoming increasingly well
known as a republican thinker: his Discourses on the
First Ten Books of Titus Livius show him as a prominent
and perhaps surprising supporter of republican modes of
government – that in order to protect our ‘negative’
liberty, citizens must become strong participants in the
decision-making process, determining their lives through
republican engagement. In this respect Machiavelli has
been taken up by Quentin Skinner and others as a repre-
sentative of a way of thinking that is an important foil to
contemporary rights-centred liberalism.
See civic republicanism; consequentialism
Further reading: Skinner 2001

Macintyre, Alasdair (1929–): Moral and political philoso-

pher whose most important work is the so-called
‘virtue trilogy’ – After Virtue; Whose Justice, Which
Rationality?; and Three Rival Versions of Moral
Enquiry. Of these, After Virtue is the most celebrated.
98 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

There, Macintyre develops a critique of modernity that

centres on the absence of the idea of man as having a
proper end or telos. This teleological conception is,
however, necessary for morality to have a point – without
a conception of mankind as having a proper end, moral-
ity reduces to a set of rules to enable people to satisfy their
preferences.
In order to revive the construction of a conception of
man’s proper end, and of the virtues, Macintyre argues,
at the end of After Virtue, for a concentration on small-
scale communities committed to common projects.
Liberalism is subject to a penetrating critique in After
Virtue: Rawls and Nozick are accused of constructing
principles of justice without any sense of social embodi-
ment. For them: ‘It is as though we had been shipwrecked
on an uninhabited island with a group of other individu-
als each of whom is a stranger to me and all the others.
What have to be worked out are rules which will safe-
guard each one of us maximally in such a situation’
(Macintyre 1981: 250).
For these reasons, Macintyre is often seen, with
Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel and Michael Walzer as a
communitarian thinker, though he rejects the label.
The Aristotelian tradition which Macintyre seeks to
revive is, in some ways, a conservative one, and Macintyre
is open to the criticism that he restricts the scope for
external criticism of the moral traditions that he exam-
ines. But he rejects this criticism, suggesting that ‘reason
can only move towards being genuinely universal and
impersonal insofar as it is neither neutral nor disinter-
ested, that membership in a particular community, one
from which fundamental dissent has to be excluded, is a
condition for genuinely rational enquiry, and more espe-
cially for moral and theological enquiry’ (Macintyre
1990: 59–60).
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 99

Macintyre’s work has been deeply significant for mod-

ern philosophy, linking criticism of the Enlightenment
project with communitarianism and the revival of virtue
ethics. It is not necessary to endorse either his Thomism or
his positive proposals in order to be challenged by his
work.
See Aristotle; communitarianism; Thomas Aquinas;
virtue ethics
Further reading: Horton and Mendus 1994; Macintyre
1981; Macintyre 1988; Macintyre 1990

Marx, Karl (1818–83): Philosopher and social theorist, who

gave his name to one of the most important political
movements and analytical perspectives of the last two
hundred years. Marx’s works cover economic theory and
analysis, historical analysis, philosophy and moral theory,
political interventions and polemics. Over the span of his
writing different phases can be made out. The early
works, which were only widely available from the 1950s,
such as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of
1844, show a mainly humanist ethical and philosophical
concentration of ideas. They particularly foreground the
notion of alienation. The later works, such as Capital,
consist of detailed economic analysis, aiming to expose
the ‘laws of motion’ of capitalism. The intent, though,
was political – to encourage and support revolutionary
change. A third set of writings – such as the Communist
Manifesto and the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,
were designed to intervene in these struggles, and to
comment on them. The Manifesto was written in collab-
oration with Frederick Engels, Marx’s long-term sponsor
and co-thinker.
Marx’s aim was to understand capitalism, better to
supersede it, and he drew on Hegel’s and, before him,
Aristotle’s work, in order to understand the nature of that
100 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

supercession. However, Marx’s dialectical approach was

couched not at the level of abstract thought but in more
concrete and economic terms. As such it has become the
touchstone for approaches that start from an examin-
ation of the economic and class factors in explaining
social change, across sociological theory, philosophy, aes-
thetics, media studies, amongst other fields.
Politically, the movement to which Marx gave his
name went through several mutations, and it is not
straightforward to argue that Marx would have endorsed
the centrally controlled states of the communist world up
to 1989. Despite that, the failure of those states does in
some ways reflect on Marx’s work if only to make it
certain that we can no longer read Marx through the eyes
of his immediate contemporary readers and opponents.
See alienation; false consciousness; Frankfurt School;
historical materialism
Further reading: Cohen 1978; Elster 1985

Marxism: Ideology that takes its roots from Karl Marx,

though he famously declared that he was not a Marxist.
Marxism incorporates both a political movement centred
on the working class that strives for an end to class
oppression and injustice, an explanatory perspective on
the social world, and a normative position which opposes
alienation and supports radical social change based on a
perfectionist account of man as a sociable and coopera-
tive being.
The political movement has been the most successful
and the least convincing of these aspects. From the revo-
lutions of 1848 through to the Paris commune and
October Revolution of 1917, along with many further
upheavals, primarily in the Third World, revolutionaries
have cited a Marxist world-view as the justification of
their actions. Successful revolutions led by Marxists have
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 101

restricted private property, but have often been accom-

panied by illiberal and undemocratic measures in which
human rights have been severely violated. They have, in
general, failed to create dynamic productive enterprises,
and fallen short on the ideal of emancipating people from
alienation in order that they live lives of self-realisation.
Dissident Marxists, from Trotskyists to the New Left,
to the Frankfurt school have recognised many of these
failings.
The Marxist approach to social scientific investigation
has been more successful, and is fully incorporated into
most social-scientific disciplines.
Within analytical political philosophy, Marxism has
been less successful until recently, when analytical
Marxism has become – perhaps briefly – a respectable
school of thought. But ironically, this has taken place at
a time when the movement that calls itself Marxist has
been subject to huge defeats at the hands of the people it
was supposed to emancipate, and this has meant that
those who draw on some of Marx’s insights are now
more likely to characterise themselves as some sort of
liberal-egalitarian.
See analytical Marxism; Cohen, Gerald A.; equality
Further reading: Cohen, G. A. 1978; Elster 1984;
Kolakowski 2005

methodological individualism: A position in the philosophy of

the social sciences which has to be carefully distinguished
from various sorts of ethical or moral individualism.
Methodological individualists hold that the best explana-
tions of social events, processes and institutions are
couched in terms of individuals, their attitudes, beliefs and
other properties, rather than at the level of groups, classes
or institutions. Explanations couched in over-general
terms either make illicit reference to social wholes – which
102 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

are nothing more than aggregates of their members – or

are just sloppy shorthand, in the absence of a properly
causal micro-level story.
Methodological individualists therefore tend to be very
critical of Marx’s explanatory method and other sorts of
functionalist sociology: functionalism seems generally to
break with the canons of good explanation prescribed by
methodological individualism since functions are pos-
sessed within systems, and individualism prescribes the
breaking down of systems into their component parts.
Methodological individualists are critical of Marx’s his-
torical materialism in so far as it seems to rely on func-
tional explanations.
Historically, methodological individualism has been
seen to be a good fit with the anti-Marxist, anti-holist
right (and it works this way with Karl Popper): however,
if it is simply a neutral methodological principle for social
investigation, there is no need for it to come with nor-
mative baggage, and, recently, theorists influenced by
analytical Marxism have argued that good explanation
must be methodologically individualist in form.
Further reading: Elster 1985; Ruben 1985

Mill, John Stuart (1806–73): An English philosopher and

politician, probably the most important historical thinker
in the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition.
Mill’s contribution to political philosophy is immense,
ranging from the key text about political freedom On
Liberty, to a fully articulated overall moral theory in
Utilitarianism, through a trenchant development of
democratic Theory in Considerations on Representative
Government, to pioneering texts of feminism – The
Subjection of Women.
In On Liberty, Mill seeks to assert one ‘very simple
principle’ that government interference into the life of the
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 103

individual ought only to take place when his action may

cause harm to others. The individual, on this line, is
master of himself and may choose to go to his own hell
in any way he chooses. This principle seems to enshrine
the liberal concern with individual freedom, limited gov-
ernment and human rights, quite clearly. However, there
are problems both with a precise articulation of Mill’s
central idea – what are these exclusively self-regarding
actions? – and also with the consistency between this idea
and Mill’s utilitarianism. It is certainly possible in princi-
ple for the harm principle to conflict with utilitarian
claims, and it seems likely that it would in practice.
Similarly, Mill’s defence of representative government
and democratic decision making is not as clear as it seems
at first sight. He certainly favours an extension of the
franchise, but not only does he endorse plural voting for
graduates, also he sees democratic institutions as only
suitable for a mature polity, exempting ‘barbarians’ from
the advantages of democracy. And there is a tension here
too, for democracy is defended in terms of its advantages,
not on a rights basis, or by reference to deontological
concerns with autonomy for its own sake. For a utilitar-
ian, endorsement of particular institutions will always be
contingent.
In The Subjection of Women, written with his wife,
Harriet Taylor, Mill the former radical MP, makes
perhaps his most radical contribution to his contempo-
rary political scene. Inveighing against the Victorian
restrictions on women’s lives, he argues for legal equality
and women’s suffrage. In this, as in his overall philo-
sophical legacy, he is still an extraordinarily rich and rele-
vant resource.
See consequentialism; harm principle; liberalism; toler-
ation; utilitarianism
Further reading: Gray 1983; Ryan 1990
104 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

multiculturalism: Multiculturalism commonly refers to two

distinct things: first the fact of multiculturalism – the
fact that increasingly nation states include those from
many different cultures, sometimes geographically concen-
trated, but sometimes not, sometimes sharing a language
with the indigenous population but sometimes not, with
all sorts of culturally specific practices, including social lin-
guistic, dietary, educational legal and financial practices.
The second phenomenon that goes under the name of
multiculturalism is the advocacy of policies of group
rights, or differential treatment, or specific laws that are
expected to address the fact of multiculturalism in a pos-
itive way. This multicultural politics might be concerned
with establishing a framework of exemptions from the
otherwise generally binding laws, or it might involve a
retreat of the state from areas of judgement which are cul-
turally sensitive, or funding for cultural groups which
are under threat. The question arises whether such prac-
tices are consistent with ‘difference-blind liberalism’.
Certainly, there seems to be a tension, though some mul-
ticulturalists (for example, Kymlicka) argue that group
rights are essential for the full participation of individu-
als in their culture, and that this full participation is nec-
essary if individuals from minority communities are to
have the resources available to them to live a full and
autonomous life. Others, such as Brian Barry, see multi-
culturalist policies as anti-liberal and to be condemned on
that basis.
Current concerns about free speech, in particular the
freedom to publish words and pictures that are offensive
to religious minorities, seem to point to a tension between
liberalism and at least some forms of multiculturalism,
since sensitivity to cultural concerns might prescribe
restrictions on the practices that liberalism looks to
defend. Further, against a background of irreconcilable
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 105

cultural and religious differences which in some cases is

expressed violently, there seems restricted scope for opti-
mism about multicultural prospects for conviviality.
See autonomy; equality
Further reading: Barry 2001; Kymlicka 1995; Young
1990

N
nationality: The property of being part of a nation – a set of
people who identify themselves in the same way and
occupy territory, perhaps sharing a language and
history. The particular necessary and sufficient condi-
tions for nationhood are controversial. Nationality is an
issue in political philosophy partly because of the
tension between nationalism and a cosmopolitan view-
point. That tension draws on a more general contrast
between impartialism and agent-relative moralities – a
problem for all sorts of collective identities, insofar as
they are thought to give rise to special obligations and
rights. If we are to take an impartial point of view,
then judgements about justice ought to have universal
applicability. Questions of specific national identity
ought not, then, to affect those judgements. However,
theorists of nationality like David Miller, Roger Scruton
and Alasdair Macintyre reject this account of the irrele-
vance of nationality to judgements about justice. They
distinguish nationality from various vicious nationalist
movements – for Scruton, vicious nationalism is a
pathology rather than the normal representation of
national sentiment. They argue that a ground-level
national affiliation is a legitimate – and perhaps indis-
pensable – part of a coherent structure of rights and
obligations.
106 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

See cosmopolitanism; multiculturalism; Rawls, John

Further reading: Caney 2006; Macintyre 1984; Miller,
D. 1995

natural law/positive law: Natural law – if it exists – is the law

that comes from natural justice, which is independent of,
and trumps, the positive law made by men in political
institutions. In Roman law, natural law is derived from
the jus gentium – the law that was thought to apply to all
peoples within the Roman Empire, regardless of local
customs. It was derived from the writing of the ancient
Greeks. For contract theorists, such as Locke, natural law
is the moral law that governs the state of nature. In
Locke’s view, it is discoverable by human reason. Positive
law, in contrast, is the law created by actual legislatures.
For Locke, natural law trumps positive law when the two
conflict. Some versions of natural law regard it as the
manifestation of God’s will for us – the line taken, for
example, by some Catholic philosophers after Thomas
Aquinas. Kant, in contrast, aims to deduce natural law
from the fact of human rationality, and argues that God
must also conform to the objective requirements of a
rational morality.
Advocacy of natural law always faces accusations that
its source is mystical and arbitrary, yet the claim that indi-
viduals have universal natural rights, just because they
are human, is widespread and powerful.
See Aristotle; Locke, John; rights; Thomas Aquinas
Further reading: Finnis 1980

natural lottery: Term used by Rawls and others to illustrate

the capricious nature of the distribution of advantages.
It seems uncontroversial to say that we are responsi-
ble – and may reasonably be blamed – for what we
choose to do, and not for what happens by chance. It
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 107

seems uncontroversial, too, to say that we deserve to be

rewarded for what is the product of our own efforts and
not for what happens by chance. Rawls argues that the
gifts we receive from the natural lottery – accidents of
birth and of genetics – are ‘arbitrary from a moral point
of view’ and therefore that they ought to have no influ-
ence on a just distributive pattern. This applies not only
to those features of our lives that appear unproblemati-
cally to be gifts of the natural lottery – like musical talents
but also to some that are more controversial, such as the
capacity and ability to work very hard: not everyone has
that capacity: those who do are lucky, and have the
capacity through no merit of their own: the capacity
itself, then, ought not to be rewarded, and the lack of a
capacity – congenital laziness – ought not to be a disad-
vantage in the distribution of scarce resources.
The overall thrust of the idea of a natural lottery has
been most clearly appropriated by luck egalitarians who
aim to equalise the effects of luck whilst leaving open and
uncompensated – unequalised – those differences that
flow from the decisions made by individuals. But here the
picture starts to get complicated (see brute luck/option
luck).
See Cohen, Gerald A.; discrimination; equality; justice
Further reading: Rawls 1971

natural rights/conventional rights: Natural rights are the set

of rights possessed by individuals in the state of nature.
Conventional rights are rights that are established by
social conventions. An example of such a convention is
the practice of bagsying whereby rights over the use of,
say, a chair, are established by the first person to say ‘bags
I have that chair’.
See natural law/positive law
Further reading: Finnis 1980
108 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

needs: To be distinguished from wants, desires, preferences,

in that the term ‘needs’ aims at a much more objective
conception of the relation between a subject and an
object: I can need something without realising that I need
it. Whilst this is important, needs are also always relative
to some end: I need X in order to do, or be Y, so that
without X, I cannot do or be Y. It is obviously true that I
need food and water in order to stay alive, and there are
a limited number of basic needs – needs for simple exis-
tence – that are objectively specifiable.
But two thought experiments show why this is too
minimal a conception of needs: suppose a person is stuck
in a small, dark pit, with no escape, and provision of
basic nutritional requirements from mushrooms and
dripping water. Second, suppose a person is constantly
being chased by a man-eating tiger, which he can (suc-
cessfully and continually) evade only by constant move-
ment. In both these cases very basic nutritional needs are
met, but it would perhaps be a mistake to regard these
lives as fully human.
But, there are difficulties in the other direction. I may
have expensive tastes, so that it may be objectively true
that I can’t be happy without a ready supply of vintage
champagne. In that case, I need Bollinger for happiness,
though not for mere existence.
Those who take a capabilities approach to distrib-
utive justice or who share an Aristotelian or essentialist
account of what it is to be human are more likely to have
the resources to construct a needs-based account of dis-
tributive justice than those whose welfarism is couched in
terms of preferences. But distribution according to need,
along the lines articulated by Marx in the Critique of the
Gotha Programme, looks more justifiable in some
spheres of justice (such as health care) than others (such
as holidays). Even where it does apply, it does not touch
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 109

on the principle of production, and the two principles

tend to intertwine.
See capabilities approach
Further reading: Hamilton 2003; Wiggins 1987

non-combatant immunity: This is the idea, in the discussion

of just war theory, that civilians or non-combatants
ought to be considered out of the reach of the contending
armies. The principle of non-combatant immunity states
that it is never permissible to aim to kill (or severely
harm) non-combatants. The principle forbids terrorist as
well as counter-terrorist activity aimed at killing (or
severely harming) non-combatants. Clearly enough, the
principle applies not just to marginal non-state groups
but also to states themselves – it suggests a notion of
‘state terrorism’. The idea of non-combatant immunity
can rest on respect for persons – the idea that only those
who have chosen to participate in warfare ought to be
targets. Because they have so chosen, combatants are
morally culpable. However, there are two problems with
this: first, when conscription or measures close to con-
scription are in place, it is not clear how voluntary the
choices made by army recruits are. Secondly, on a strong
account of complicity, some tend to argue for much wider
culpability beyond those who wear military uniforms.
Others argue that the principle of non-combatant immu-
nity is not strong enough. Because it forbids only inten-
tional harming of non-combatants, it remains silent on
the foreseen but unintended killing of non-combatants.
But this position – that non-combatant casualties consti-
tute unintended and regrettable ‘collateral damage’ is the
standard rationale given by those who justify such acts.
Finally, the principle of non-combatant immunity
could be driven by a simple pragmatic concern to min-
imise harm. Having rules of war will tend to do this, and
110 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

limiting the reach of intentional killing by widespread

acceptance of an exclusion clause will generally minimise
harm. But this is a contingent matter, and leaves us with
a principle of non-combatant immunity that lacks force
in tough cases. Generally, those with strong consequen-
tialist concerns are likely to minimise the force of the
principle of non-combatant immunity, and deontological
concerns will tend to act in the opposite direction.
Further reading: Walzer 1977

normative/descriptive: An account is normative if it pre-

scribes conduct – if it tells us what we ought to do by
laying down norms or criteria by which to judge actions,
institutions and so on. An account is descriptive if it
simply describes an action, process or series of events.
Most philosophers agree, following Hume, that descrip-
tive accounts do not entail normative conclusions: how
things are does not determine how they should be.
But some more recent approaches question this stark
contrast: critical theorists argue that the claim to
‘value freedom’ in the social sciences is a sham, and it is
better to be upfront about one’s inescapably value-laden
approach. In moral theory, virtue theorists take certain
general features of humankind to play an important part
in determining what virtuous action is, and, in political
philosophy, the capabilities approach also reflects on sup-
posed facts about human functionings in determining cri-
teria for global distributive justice.
See capabilities approach; Hume, David; virtue ethics
Further reading: Rawls 1971

Nozick, Robert (1938–2002): US political philosopher and

theorist of distributive justice. Nozick’s work covers both
political philosophy and other areas – the theory of
knowledge, probability theory, and the philosophy of
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 111

science more generally, but he will be best known for his

1974 publication Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In this
work he aims to draw the reader in from commonly
accepted premises to some surprising conclusions about
the impermissibility of redistributive taxation – which
amounts to a form of slavery, a minimal conception of the
‘night watchman’ state, with no welfare component at
all, and a strong conception of private property rights
which inevitably involves assenting to very wide dispari-
ties of wealth, income and resources.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a direct response to
Rawls’s Theory of Justice and shares some common
philosophical roots – opposition to utilitarianism and
some affinities to Kant and Locke. But Nozick’s use of
state of nature theory comes up with radically different
results. Individuals have rights, and these ought not to be
violated by the state. Redistributive taxation violates
these rights – while voluntary redistribution in the form
of charity might be commendable, forced redistribution
through taxation violates our self-ownership rights. We
are entitled, Nozick thinks, to the full fruits of our
labours, with only small deductions directed to the state
as a protective agency being justified. Otherwise, we are
free to pursue our own projects, in voluntary associa-
tions, as much as we like. This is justified by a hypothet-
ical but temporal conception of the development of the
minimal state. But those associations ought not to coerce
patterns of distribution – this would violate the separate-
ness of persons – a violation which, Nozick thinks, is a
hallmark of theories like those of both Rawls and the
Utilitarians.
Whilst Rawls perhaps won the debate over distributive
justice amongst academic philosophers, there is little
doubt that Nozick won the battle to be politically influ-
ential, at least to begin with – his ideas were partially
112 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

adopted by the so-called New Right in the US and

Western Europe in the 1980s and have been influential
ever since. Recently there has been something of a revival
in interst in Rawls amongst policy makers.
See Chamberlain, Wilt; entitlement theory; eye lottery;
libertarianism
Further reading: Nozick 1974; Wolff 1991

O
Oakeshott, Michael (1902–92): The most important English
conservative philosopher, Michael Oakeshott is known
for his works Rationalism and Politics (1958) and
Human Conduct (1976). Oakeshott aims to pursue a
view of civil association which respects tradition and
eschews empiricism. He condemns rationalism and ideo-
logical attempts to remodel political institutions accord-
ing to some overarching and historically abstracted
universal principle, and argues instead for an approach in
which the guiding principles of political associations are
discovered rather than made. For example, representative
government is not to be thought of as a particular instru-
ment for fulfilling a certain function, to be assessed
according to how well it does in relation to that pre-
existing function. Rather, it is a form of civil association
that is irreducible – itself setting up the nature of the func-
tion, and the problem to be addressed. In this (rather
Wittgensteinian) way, with civil association not con-
ceived of as the product of contract or of the coordina-
tion of individual purposes, but as something more
self-generating, the problem of political obligation
changes shape. If civil association is the taken-for-granted
form of life, political obligation has this character too.
Oakeshott’s theory of human nature can be elusive, and
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 113

his criticisms of the left are partly self-standing. He did

not present a new system but rather a series of influential
insights into the nature of political thinking.
Further reading: Franco 2004; Grant 1990

obligations: Any account of the relations between the indi-

vidual and other individuals, and the state, or sub-state
corporate bodies, will need to give an account to what
obligations we are under and how they arise. One stan-
dard way to do this is by suggesting that obligations arise
from contracts: if I promise to pay you back that money
I borrowed from you last night, then I am under an oblig-
ation to you to do just that. To the extent that we make
promises or quasi-promises to each other and to the state,
then we are, to that degree, under obligations. For some
philosophers that is the end of the matter: for others,
there are also natural obligations, which exist without
any prior contract. Amongst these might be duties to
one’s children – who are not competent to make con-
tracts, and obligations to animals who are in our care and
likewise incompetent. It is, though, a little mysterious as
to how these natural duties arise: unless they arise from
some sort of tacit adoption of a contract, they seem to
violate Hume’s insistence that you cannot derive an
‘ought’ from an ‘is’.
Obligations fall under the realm of right, as opposed to
those actions and institutions of value that are good, but
not obligatory: this distinction takes the form in Kant of
the distinction between broad obligations – to kindliness,
for example, which can be met in a variety of ways. Kant
contrasts these with strict obligations, which are categor-
ical in form.
To the extent that obligations do not exhaust the
terrain of morally commendable actions, there is a con-
trast between the right and the good: both the idea of a
114 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

right to do wrong and of supererogatory actions support

this way of thinking. One seems to be a case of wrong
actions that are morally permissible, the other, of good
actions that are not required. If this is the case, we have
a two-level moral theory, and there is a need to determine
the priority relations between the two levels. Liberalism
seems to involve this contrast: the sphere of liberal rights
protects our right to do wrong, and the liberal insistence
on the priority of the right over the good prescribes some
limits on state action to secure the good society – our col-
lective obligations, perhaps, do not extend that far.
See categorical imperative; priority of the right over the
good
Further reading: Horton 1992; Klosko 1994

option luck see brute luck/option luck

original position: For Rawls the original position is a way of

modelling the demands of justice. Owing something to
the social contract tradition of Hobbes, Locke and
Rousseau, it is a hypothetical device which seeks to
isolate those criteria which are relevant to an account of
just principles from those considerations which are not.
The hypothetical participants in the deliberations in the
original position know some things, but they are ignorant
of others: they are ignorant, for example, of their own
sex, race, religious identity (or lack of it) and – most con-
troversially – they are ignorant of their own particular
comprehensive theory of the good. They make their deci-
sions about principles of distributive justice from behind
a ‘veil of ignorance’. They do have access to certain
empirical features of the world – they have a general
understanding of some of the causal social chains that
determine the outcome of one policy compared to
another. Rawls specifies things in this way in order to
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 115

deliver an impartial, but achievable, conception of

justice, rooted in the real world, but insensitive to those
matters that ought not to skew distribution.
The original position has been criticised for its artifi-
ciality, its arbitrariness, the fact that it includes too much,
or that it excludes too much. Some criticism seems to miss
the target – that the original position constitutes a hypo-
thetical decision procedure. Like the agreement ‘you cut,
I’ll choose’ when dividing up a cake, it seeks to inoculate
the distributor from partiality in advance. Whether that
sort of decision properly models the concerns of justice is
a moot point. For example, it is arguable that the model
of the rational chooser, dispossessed of any notion of the
good, is itself a conception of the good – that the sort of
life we ought to lead, what the best sort of life is, is that
of the rational chooser without a comprehensive concep-
tion of the good. But whether the orginal position is ‘arti-
ficial’ is beside the point.
See social contract
Further reading: Daniels 1975; Rawls 1971

ownership see property

P
Paine, Thomas (1737–1809): Born in Norfolk, and for the
first thirty-seven years of his life an unknown artisan,
Thomas Paine became a leading figure in the American
rebellion against Britain, and also played a role in the
French Revolution. Following his desperate emigration to
America in 1774, he established a reputation as a pamph-
leteer and journalist, who was unambiguously on the side
of the people. His writing style, no doubt because of his
humble origins, was direct and accessible – although he
116 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

was something of a misfit amongst the gentry-led rebel-

lion, he was also the key populariser of the rebellion.
Paine’s rationalism and democratic drive led him to
popularise the views of John Locke and the earlier
Commonwealthmen. God had created us with natural
rights, distributed equally. High or lowly birth was an
irrelevance from this point of view: differences in outcome
were justified only on the basis of variations in talent and
individual choices. Men of equal status ought to have an
equal voice in decisions: social life and cooperation is a
natural outcome not an artificial construction – and
whilst the state was required when things went awry, its
scope ought to be strictly limited.
Returning to Europe, in the late 1780s, Paine’s oppos-
ition to hereditary power became most widely known
with the publication of The Rights of Man in 1791. This
amounted to a ferocious attack on Burke and a defence
of the ideals of the French Revolution. For Paine, trad-
ition and custom provided no justification for the thwart-
ing of the will of the people. Republicanism, on the
French stamp, represented the future. Not surprisingly,
this was a dangerous position to take, and Paine fled
England for France.
There, he took the side of the Girondins, but found
himself vulnerable and imprisoned when the Terror
began. He was released in 1794, and published the Age
of Reason (1794) which outlined and justified his
Enlightenment Deism, before returning to America, and
widespread condemnation.
Further reading: Keane 1995

pareto optimality: Pareto optimality describes a criterion for

judging distributive arrangements. An arrangement is
Pareto-optimal if nobody could be made better off without
someone being made worse off. It is named after the Italian
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 117

economist Vilfredo Pareto. If a situation is Pareto-optimal

this shows that there are no pain-free gains available.
Pareto optimality rules out, for example, immediate gains
from unused resources. If the situation is Pareto-optimal,
gains for some must come from losses for others.
However, in any situation of interesting complexity the
set of Pareto-optimal outcomes is very large. The condi-
tion of Pareto optimality does not help in distinguishing
within that set. Thus, even for those who value the crite-
rion, it can only be a necessary and not a sufficient crite-
rion of social justice. Some critics also argue that Pareto
optimality takes too much as given, since the criterion
refers to outcomes, not processes.
One important result in social choice theory, due to
Sen, is called ‘the impossibility of a Paretian liberal’. This
shows that there is a conflict between the sovereignty of
individuals protecting their own private sphere and a
weak Paretian condition of efficient allocation.
Further reading: Sen 1970

paternalism: An approach to regulation, law and rights that

is modelled on the relationship between parents (perhaps,
but unimportantly, fathers) and their children. Parents
seem to have natural duties towards their children, are
responsible for their well-being, know better than their
children how to secure that well-being, and consequently
have authority over them. On this line of argument par-
enting is like a benevolent dictatorship. Paternalism is the
thesis that people should be made to live in the way that
is best for them – whether they recognise that this is best
for them or not.
Legislation that is modelled on this sort of arrangement
includes proscription of some drug use, censorship of
political material or pornography, and laws that require
the use of seat-belts in cars. In each case, it may seem that
118 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Mill’s anti-paternalist harm principle is violated, and citi-

zens are treated not as rational beings whose autonomy
ought to be respected, but as child-like. For this reason,
paternalism seems to confront autonomy and respect for
rights, the Kantian rationality constraint on our dealings
with persons of equal moral value, and the priority of the
right over the good.
Paternalist measures can be more easily justified by a
consequentialist than a Kantian – but the base line justi-
fication is likely to be partly empirical – and sometimes
smacks of circularity: paternalism is only justified when
people are not capable of rational and autonomous
actions (as children are not capable). They need, there-
fore, to be protected from the damaging consequences of
their dangerous actions. The evidence that they are not
capable of rational and autonomous action is that they
choose to partake in the hazardous activities in the first
place.
In ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1969), Berlin tries to
show how a certain way of thinking about liberty has,
paradoxically, led some political theorists to adopt pater-
nalism. Berlin believes that this way of thinking is dan-
gerous, but Taylor defends it.
See autonomy; positive liberty
Further reading: Berlin1969; Taylor 1995b

patriarchy: Literally rule by the fathers – patriarchy is a term

used largely but not exclusively by second-wave feminists
to describe a systematic structure of rule by men. This is
manifested overtly: most powerful positions in society are
held by men, most decisions are taken by men, politics is
a male preserve, aspects of family and divorce law posit
men as more powerful – but patriarchy manifests itself
less obviously in a set of discourses, narratives, stereo-
types and underlying assumptions – from the seemingly
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 119

trivial use of terms like ‘chairman’, applied both to men

and women, to the widespread social acceptance of forms
of mutilation like surgical breast augmentation and
female genital mutilation.
See authority/authoritarianism; feminism
Further reading: Okin 1991; Pateman 1988

perfectionism: The view that certain states or activities of

human beings such as knowledge, achievement and artis-
tic creation are good, apart from any happiness they
bring and that what is morally right is what best pro-
motes these excellences or perfections. In political phil-
osophy, a perfectionist view might lead to advocacy of
state support of high culture – such as state funding of
opera – since such subsidy supports the best form of life.
Within political philosophy, it is common to come
across a version of this doctrine (such as, in different
ways, in Marx and Aristotle) founded on a conception of
essential human nature. Once we know what essential
human nature is like (perhaps that we are essentially aes-
thetic, or contemplative, or productive beings) then we
can set up political institutions and rules to support the
flourishing of those activities. Perfectionism tends to lead
to both self- and other-regarding duties. These other-
regarding duties will be duties to promote perfections and
they seem to conflict with liberty and equality. A gener-
alised version of perfectionism might incorporate a con-
ception of positive freedom that licences infringements of
autonomy in order to secure the good for others, despite
their own wishes.
But this is not necessarily the case. A perfectionist
account could involve autonomy centrally in its con-
ception of the good life. Thus, a perfectionist could give
an account of rules and principles of justice that aims
to encourage autonomy, which could, in practice, map
120 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

out the same territory as an anti-perfectionst, pluralist

account.
See pluralism; priority of the right over the good
Further reading: Raz 1986

Plamenatz, John (1912–75): Plamenatz would have charac-

terised himself as a social and political theorist, rather
than as a political philosopher. His strength lay in the
exposition, elucidation and criticism of the canonical
works of the Western tradition in political thought –
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, the English
Utilitarians, Hegel, Marx and Weber. The output of work
in this area accounted to the largest contribution to the
subject by anyone in Britain since the Second World
War. Whilst he rejected linguistic analysis, Plamenatz’s
approach was more robust about testing for validity and
truth than the contextual school, who argued that ideas
cannot be correctly interpreted without the fullest pos-
sible understanding of the motives, intentions and cir-
cumstances of those who express them. Plamenatz held
that, while this contextual information might be of some
help, it was not essential to the interpretative task.
Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (1968)
examined the role of consent in securing obligation. In
this work, Plamenatz tied the notion of consent closely to
the idea of giving permissions and expressing wishes.
Later, Plamenatz took this analysis to be too narrow, and
he attempted to explain the case in which someone who
voted for an election candidate who turned out to lose
could be taken to have consented to rule by the winner.
Clearly the voter did not necessarily express any wish con-
cerning the winner. Nonetheless, Plamenatz held, he had
in some sense consented to the authority of the winner.
In Man and Society (1963), Plamenatz argued that
Locke had brought together two functions of consent
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 121

that ought to be kept apart. It was right to stipulate

consent as a condition for bringing individuals within the
bounds of society but false to claim that, in a constituted
society, an obligation to obey rested on having consented
to obey. In The English Utilitarians (1949), Plamenatz is
critical of Mill’s claim to rest his anti-paternalistic prin-
ciples on a utilitarian basis. Such principles simply do not
provide a secure basis for anti-paternalism, because the
choice for or against anti-paternalist principles is a con-
tingent one.
Further reading: Plamenatz 1968

Plato (c. 428–348 bc): Ancient Greek philosopher, arguably

the founder of political philosophy. In the Republic
argues against democracy and for Philosopher Kings as
the basis of an ideal state. In the Laws, he gives a typol-
ogy of constitutions illustrated by the various Greek city
states.
The Republic starts by inquiring into the nature of
justice. For Plato, justice is not the same as power, and it
provides a standard by which power can be judged. In
this respect Plato sets up a mode of criticism that has been
directed against absolutists and autocrats for millennia.
However, Plato is no democrat, and is scathing about the
Athenian constitution.
Plato characterises democracy as like democratic man –
rather chaotic, and inconstant – though his liberty and
equality are commended. This is a move used throughout
the Republic, where Plato compares the sort of man char-
acteristic of certain political frameworks: democratic
man, aristocratic man and so on. But there is also a clear
argument by analogy – the practice of governing a state is
like the practice of navigating a ship. Both require partic-
ular sorts of expertise, training, experience and know-
ledge, which are not generally possessed. Because of the
122 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

particular sorts of skills required, it would be very foolish

to entrust a ship to a quarrelsome crew, who lacked those
skills. In the same way it is imprudent to entrust a state to
its people. They lack the expertise, training, experience
and knowledge to guide a state, and so will make a worse
job of it than an elite of philosopher-kings who are prop-
erly equipped for the task. In short, the common people
are not up to the job of guiding the state in the most effec-
tive way.
Plato presents a typology of constitutions – timocracy,
based on honour, oligarchy, based on wealth, and democ-
racy based on licence – but all fail in comparison with the
rule of philosopher-kings. This constitution rests on a
highly developed educational system which prepares the
citizen for the task of ruling.
In arguing for his ideal state, Plato proposes the aboli-
tion of the family, and some form of communism, as well
as censorship and what we would today call propaganda
on behalf of the state. The organically conceived state
penetrates into every part of the citizen’s life, in a way
that, to some commentators such as Popper, foreshadows
totalitarianism.
See aristocracy; democracy; justice
Further reading: Annas 1981

pluralism: Pluralism refers to the idea of multiplicity of basic

things, in opposition to monism. Moral pluralism refers
therefore to a series of basic moral values that are incom-
mensurable – not comparable to each other – and not
reducible to each other. The existence of irreducible plu-
ralities of value will mean that political conflicts are likely
to be intractable. For example, it is often thought that both
freedom and equality are of fundamental value, but that it
is not possible to reduce or assimilate one to the other.
Thus, and in practice, they conflict, leading to irresolvable
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 123

political conflict. The view that value pluralism makes

conflict inevitable is countered by monistic views that
assert the existence of a sovereign virtue, which will,
perhaps, be uncovered and understood. If this is the case,
perfectionist accounts of the good life may be appropriate.
Pluralism also refers to a distinctive idea in political
science – the idea that political power is, or ought to be,
distributed amongst a number of different centres or
institutions, each acting on the other and restricting its
activity. On this account, institutional pluralism is
thought to be a bulwark against tyranny.
Further reading: Baghramian and Ingram 2000

political obligation: A political obligation is a moral obliga-

tion to obey a state’s laws and perhaps also to support the
state (by paying taxes and sharing in common defence,
for example) irrespective of whether one has independent
reasons for doing so. The primary philosophical ques-
tions regarding political obligation concern when and
why a person might be under such an obligation.
Why should one obey the state? This is perhaps the
most fundamental question in political philosophy. There
are a number of answers offered, but one way of avoid-
ing the question is to consider areas in which there is
independent moral reason for acting as the state requires:
it is wrong to lop off the heads of passers by, not merely
because it is against the law to do so. One might even
worry about someone who only refrained from head
lopping because it was against the law to do so. Rather
than this sort of case, political obligation tends to con-
sider whether there are any independent reasons for
obeying the law, regardless of the content of the law itself.
These reasons are likely to be procedural – the law is
likely to be authoritative because of how it has come
into being. So, perhaps the law comes from God, or God’s
124 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

representative – by divine right – on earth, and that gives

us a reason to obey it. Or perhaps we are the authors of
the law ourselves, by consenting to or participating in the
process by which the law is made: on this line of argu-
ment we are ruling ourselves, and so the question of polit-
ical obligation appears to pose a contradiction – why
should I obey a law that I prescribe? However, voluntarist
theories of this sort tend to lose the individual will some-
where in the complexities of the contracting or consent-
ing process. Forms of consent that clearly deliver the
goods – like express consent – are difficult to generalise.
Plenty of people do not expressly consent to obey the law.
Those forms of consent that are easily generalisable –
tacit consent – seem not always to deliver the obligation
goods.
Some consequentialists believe they have an adequate
theory of political obligation, because they point to
the devastating effects of lawlessness in human happi-
ness and welfare. But not all acts of lawlessness are prob-
lematic in this way if there are victimless crimes.
Consequentialists need to deduce objections to individual
law-breaking from the consequences of general law-
breaking, and it is not clear that they have the resources
to do so.
H. L. A. Hart’s fairness principle seems to go someway
to formalising some of our intuitions about political
obligation: the state, after all, is a joint enterprise from
which we all reap benefits – even presumptive benefits.
But perhaps the most interesting work on political
obligation suggests that we adopt a plural account,
with a series of different perspectives brought to bear on
different aspects of the problem, and different spe-
cific obligations to obey. But there are two criticisms of
this approach. First, it seems unreasonably ad hoc.
Secondly, the perspectives are in tension with one another.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 125

Philosophical anarchists are able to side step this diffi-

culty entirely. In practice, they may end up obeying the
law in almost all cases, but they will not do so simply
because it is the law.
Further reading: Hart 1955; Horton 1992; Wolff 1970

positive law see natural law/positive law

positive liberty: Conception of liberty standardly – but some-

times misleadingly – contrasted with negative liberty.
Following Berlin’s famous essay ‘Two Concepts’ it is
common to contrast two conceptions of liberty – negative
liberty, thought of as ‘liberty from’, and positive liberty,
commonly thought of as ‘liberty to’. However, following
MacCallum’s criticism, this seems analytically inade-
quate. Positive liberty covers at least two conceptually
separate ideas – one is freedom as autonomy – my ability
to rule myself – and the other is having the resources
that will enable me to take up the opportunities that are
available.
In the history of political thought, positive freedom has
been subject, as Berlin rightly suggests, to exploitation by
totalitarians. In the form of freedom as autonomy, it is
possible to see an attempt for a higher self to control a
lower self – if I am subject to cravings, or base instincts,
which I would like to control but am unable to do so,
then perhaps I am not fully free. The totalitarian turn
comes where the higher self is not internal to the individ-
ual itself, but becomes embodied in the person of the
state. Then, because of this ‘monstrous impersonation’
the state stands in as the higher self and directs the actions
of the lower self – the individual citizen in the name of the
latter’s positive freedom. Thus positive freedom can seem
to be implicated in coercion – the suggestion that one is
‘forced to be free’ in Rousseau’s words.
126 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Despite this, there is something in different varieties of

positive freedom – it is commonly invoked by republican
figures as an argument for political participation as a pre-
requisite of freedom and autonomy.
See Berlin, Isaiah; civic republicanism; negative liberty
Further reading: Berlin 1969; MacCallum 1967;
Taylor 1995a

postmodernism: The name given to a wide-ranging and

diffuse way of thinking that covers aesthetics and
architecture, music and politics, literary theory and the
analysis of moral thinking. In political philosophy, post-
modernism can best be summarised as ‘incredulity
towards meta-narratives’ in the words of Jean-François
Lyotard. The grand narratives to which postmodern-
ists express incredulity include, inter alia, Marxism,
Freudianism, Scientism, the Enlightenment project, the
quest for single, universal criteria of rationality and for
abstract and general principles of justice. Behind each of
these grand narratives there is the suggestion of domin-
ating and essentialist discourses which aim at subordin-
ating other ways of looking and thinking. They rest on
the ideas that texts have preset meanings, that words
have essential referents and that capturing the authors’
intentions gives us a way of accessing the truth. Au con-
traire, Wittgenstein has shown that meaning is use,
Barthes has proclaimed the death of the author and
Adorno and Horkheimer have implicated scientific ratio-
nality in the worst evils of our times.
Postmodernism is post modern because these grand
narratives are associated with modernity and the aspira-
tion to rational, universal thinking, well founded in essen-
tial facts about the human condition. But if there are no
essential facts – if essentialism is another dominating and
exclusive discourse, if anti-foundationalism is the best
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 127

response to the plurality of normative thinking, then the

whole theoretical project of modernity looks inadequate.
Amongst the important postmodern thinkers are
Foucault and Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigary and
Jean Baudrillard. The impact of postmodernism on polit-
ical philosophy is impossible to determine impartially. In
one respect it has left the discipline entirely alone –
Anglophone political philosophy of the type practised
by Rawls is itself a ‘grand narrative’, to which postmod-
ernists simply express incredulity. These expressions are
often greeted with incomprehension by Anglophone
political philosophers.
At the same time critical theory and critical theorists
have engaged with mainstream political philosophy in an
exciting and unproblematic way. To the extent that post-
modernism is reflected back into political philosophy
through Iris Marion Young and Jürgen Habermas, it has
a profound effect on Anglophone political philosophy. To
the extent that it is represented by the sorts of thinking
exposed by the Sokal affair, in which the editors of Social
Text were happy to publish a nonsensical paper, the inter-
action will be minimal.
See Foucault, Michel; foundationalism; Habermas,
Jürgen; Young, Iris Marion
Further reading: Boghossian 2006; Drolet 2003

power: Power is exercised when one social actor is able to get

another social actor to conform to his wishes. In an influ-
ential account, Steven Lukes outlines three dimensions of
power, according to which, first, power is recognisable
when there is social conflict, second, power can be exer-
cised when conflict is suppressed, and, third, power can
be recognised when an individual’s real interests are
damaged, even if the person consents to or approves of
that damage. On this account, power is a paradigm of
128 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

W. B. Gallie’s essentially contested concept, because the

notion at its heart – of an individual’s real interest – is
essentially contested. It is plausible to suggest that simple
lack of knowledge of counterfactuals and also ideologi-
cal illusions can cloud individuals’ understandings of
their own real interests. Workers may be victims of false
consciousness, women may internalise the assumptions
and stereotypes of patriarchy and adaptive preferences
can obscure the exercise of power.
Critical theorists, drawing on Foucault’s analysis, have
drawn attention to these and other ways in which power
is exerted, directing attention away from simple force and
coercion to the more subtle and sophisticated ways in
which power is (perhaps unwittingly) exercised by dom-
inant groups. But insofar far as these accounts rest on
controversial and contested assumptions about real inter-
ests, they will remain contentious themselves.
See coercion
Further reading: Lukes 2004

primary goods: Primary goods are those goods that everyone

wants, whatever else it is that they want. So for those
behind the veil of ignorance, in the original position, the
distribution of primary goods can be assessed without
knowing about their own comprehensive theory of the
good. Amongst those on Rawls’s list of the primary goods
are basic rights and liberties, freedom of movement and
occupation, powers and prerogatives of office, income
and wealth and the social bases of self-respect.
For some critics, listing primary goods in this way
seems a little ad hoc – resting on an illegitimate essential-
ist account of human nature that smuggles in too much
empirical information. For others, such as Sen the list is
too short and lacks sufficient detail – it is possible to say
much more about capacities for functionings that are
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 129

required to secure human well-being in a wide variety of

circumstances.
See capabilities approach
Further reading: Rawls 1971; Sen 1995

priority of the right over the good: On the liberal conception

of justice, a distinction can be made between, on the one
hand, different conceptions of the good life for human
beings – what is virtuous or of benefit to human beings
– and, on the other hand, principles of justice concern-
ing what is right, what rights and obligations individuals
have to one another. Further, it is generally part of the
liberal conception that the right is prior to the good –
that we ought first to secure individual’s rights, and only
then promote whatever it is that constitutes the good life.
In Rawls’s Theory of Justice, this is embodied in the
lexical priority given to fair equality of opportunity over
the difference principle. More thin conceptions of liber-
alism, such as that articulated in Rawls’s Political
Liberalism have very little to say about comprehensive
conceptions of the good, whilst some thicker concep-
tions, such as those of perfectionist liberals like Jo Raz,
argue for a comprehensive conception that involves the
thought that the autonomous life is the good life. In this
way they bring the two conceptions of moral value closer
together.
The priority of the right over the good issues in the
simple thought that, whatever the benefits and however
much government action might promote the good, there
are limits, prescribed by justice, on the extent to which
individuals can be incorporated for that end. It therefore
expresses a core idea of liberalism and reflects the fact of
a plurality of comprehensive conceptions of the good.
See justice; liberalism; perfectionism
Further reading: Rawls 1971; Raz 1986; Sandel 1985
130 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

prisoner’s dilemma: The name given to a core example in

game theory. Suppose two individuals engage jointly in
committing some crime: both are caught, but, with no
evidence, the police must seek a confession from one
of the prisoners in order to prosecute the crime. The
prisoners are held separately without the means of com-
munication, and each is offered a heavily reduced pun-
ishment if they are the first to confess. Each therefore
reasons as follows: if I keep quiet and he confesses, I face
a heavy sentence; whereas if we both keep quiet, we will
both be freed. But if he might confess, then I ought to
confess first, in order that I, and not he, receive the
reduced sentence: he might confess, so I should make sure
I confess now.
For the two prisoners acting in consort, the best option
is for neither of them to confess. But for each of them indi-
vidually, the best option is indeed to confess, and as fast
as possible. Where there is a gain from breaking an agree-
ment, individuals acting alone and thinking of their own
short-term interests are likely to break that agreement.
Prudence in these circumstances tends to undermine
cooperation – cooperation requires the establishment of
moral norms – such as the doctrine of honour amongst
thieves.
The prisoner’s dilemma is one way (albeit anachronis-
tically) of modelling the situation in the state of nature,
according to Hobbes. Influential accounts have used
game theory as a way of justifying political authority.
Further reading: Hampton 1986

property: Property rights are the strongest rights that an

individual can have over a thing (or, in the case of
slavery, another person). These rights are an aggregate of
several distinct sets of claim rights, correlative duties,
privileges and immunities (see Hohfeld). But the main
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 131

ones are the rights to use and to exclude others from use,
the rights to exchange or give away, and the right to
destroy.
Questions arise about the forms of property – common
ownership, private property, non-ownership, and the jus-
tification of these forms. As well, questions can be asked
about the distribution of property rights, questions which
fall under the general concern with distributive justice,
and over the original process of appropriation – or
making something into a piece of private property. Here
Locke sets the standard, arguing in the second treatise
that individuals can make something into property if they
mix their labour with it, so long as two conditions are
met: first, that the appropriation leaves others with
‘enough and as good’ left over for further appropriation
and, second, that what is appropriated is not wasted. If
these two conditions are met, it looks as if original appro-
priation can take place without harm to anyone’s inter-
est, and so it might seem unreasonable to oppose it. There
is a real question, though, about the extent to which the
two provisos – particularly the first – can be satisfied.
Depending on how it is interpreted, Locke’s claim can
underwrite forms of communism, or give support to
widespread private property and the inequalities that go
with it.
Conflict over private property goes back as far as
Aristotle and Plato’s disagreement over common owner-
ship, and features among the concerns of all the canon-
ical figures. For Rousseau and Marx, private property is
to be condemned – it alienates social individuals from
each other, and has subtle detrimental psychological
effects. For Hayek, private property is the foundation of
a free society.
See alienation
Further reading: Becker 1977
132 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

prudence: The idea of an act being prudential is often con-

trasted with the idea of an act being moral. For example,
it is prudent not to eat rotten food, but not eating rotten
food seems neither to be a moral obligation nor particu-
larly morally praiseworthy. Prudence is the virtue of the
rational egoist who aims to maximise his own satisfac-
tion. In political philosophy, some contractarian accounts
of political and moral obligation seem to establish a pru-
dential rather than a moral obligation, and this means
that the basis of the obligation is less secure. Prudential
justifications of acts will depend on the consequences to
agents: prudential justifications of the obligation not to
steal will work only as far as the state apprehends thieves
and punishes them. On this line of argument, prudence is
also the virtue of the clever knave, who acts in accordance
with principles of justice only insofar as they match his
own satisfaction, and breaks them when he can get away
with it.
See assurance game; contract theory; Hobbes, Thomas;
prisoner’s dilemma; state of nature
Further reading: Gauthier 1986

public/private distinction: Distinguishing between the public

and the private realm is a mark of most kinds of liberal
approaches to the problems of political morality. One way
of making the distinction is to outline the extent to which
we are publicly accountable for our actions, and conse-
quently governed by principles of justice that govern the
‘basic structure’, and to contrast those realms in which we
are not so answerable. In this respect, private life is pro-
tected by individual rights. Critics charge that this leaves
huge areas of injustice and oppression hidden from
scrutiny, whilst defenders of the distinction suggest that
extending the scope of justice endorses an unreasonable
paternalism.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 133

For Marx in ‘On the Jewish Question’ (Marx 1944), the

split between the state and civil society leaves liberal man
with a split personality, alienated from his essence as a
social and communicative being. Theorists of multicul-
turalism add complexity to this picture: group rights
accorded to cultural minorities may provide resources that
allow individuals to live autonomous lives, but run the risk
that they thereby permit unjust practices in the private
sphere. Some liberals worry about this, and join feminists
and Marxists in arguing that the ‘personal is political’.
In determining the boundaries of the private sphere we
also help to determine the areas in which partiality is jus-
tified. We may reasonably prefer our children to others in
some matters: by reading them, and only them, bed time
stories. We may not reasonably prefer them by appoint-
ing them to well-paid government jobs, when we have the
power to do so. The extent of this legitimate partiality is
contentious, partly because it sets in train an inegalitar-
ian dynamic that leads to unequal opportunities.
See equality of opportunity; Marx, Karl
Further reading: Barry 2001; Okin 1991

punishment: Punishment requires moral justification, since it

involves the infliction of hard treatment (pain, financial
loss, the removal of specific freedoms) on an individual
against their will. There is, then, a problem of justifying
punishment as an institution, which underlies the partic-
ular problem of what punishment is appropriate in
individual cases. There are three standard theories: deter-
rence, rehabilitation and retributivism. Deterrence theo-
ries are found in the works of consequentialists such as
Bentham and retributive theories are found in Kant,
amongst others. The recent history of the problem shows
a move in philosophy and penal theory from deterrence
and rehabilitation to the ‘new retributivism’.
134 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

One of the reasons for this is that deterrence theories

seemed unduly influenced by the light-mindedness with
respect to justice evidenced by utilitarian accounts of pun-
ishment. On these accounts, justice seems to be only a con-
tingently derived outcome of a system of punishment.
Further, deterrence theories seemed to violate the rational-
ity constraint, which, drawing on some Kantian consider-
ations, prescribes that rational persons be treated as ends,
not merely as means. Rehabilitation and reform accounts
of punishment also seem to fail in this way, however, if
they bypass treating the individual as a rational person.
This has given rise to theories of punishment as communi-
cation, in which great emphasis is place on the role of the
person being punished, and their coming to a full under-
standing of the ways in which they have violated import-
ant moral constraints. An institution of punishment
created in this way would treat offenders as rational
persons, not as reactive animals who required training and
modifying in order to secure preferred forms of behaviour.
See consequentialism; deontology; justice; Kant,
Immanuel; utilitarianism
Further reading: Matravers (ed.) 1999

R
race: While racial categories and ethnic identities are part of our
everyday discourse, it is hard to say what a ‘race’ actually is.
Genetic difference does not map to racial categories – there
is no ‘racial gene’ that allows us to read off racial categories.
However, race is obviously a major source of self- and
other-identification and a way in which the world is
carved up, conceptually, socially and economically. Races
are groupings of human beings into categories according
to morphology and genetics. Groups are characterised as
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 135

‘white’, ‘black’ and so on, on the basis of skin colour and

facial features.
Race is largely a social construction, which selects
certain characteristics and clusters groups around them.
This contingency is one way of understanding – and under-
mining – the idea of a racial hierarchy. Racial hierarchies
mean that advantageous and disadvantageous treatment is
distributed depending on membership of a racial group.
But, since the characteristics that determine membership
of a racial group are clustered together on an arbitrary
basis, discrimination on the basis of race is itself arbitrary
(and consequently unjust).
However, this is too simple an approach. In fact, what
makes racial discrimination especially troubling is the fact
that this set of characteristics does constitute and help to
determine the individual’s life chances across a very wide
range of variables: housing, healthcare, education, job
opportunities and so on. The more these cleavages coin-
cide on racial grounds, the less satisfactory it is to dismiss
racial groups as arbitrary and simply irrelevant from the
moral point of view.
In so far as difference-blind liberalism fails to take into
account the background conditions, structures, hierar-
chies and patterns of oppression and domination, it will,
to that extent, risk reflecting them and leaving them in
place. In so far as difference-blind liberalism fails to reflect
the idea that individuals are essentially constituted by
racial identity, then it fails properly to represent them in
its decision procedures. This is the sort of case made by
critical race theorists against difference-blind liberalism.
See discrimination
Further reading: Appiah 1996; Boxill 2000

Rawls, John (1921–2002): Rawls is the most important pol-

itical philosopher of the twentieth century. He spent
136 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

virtually his entire career at Havard, and published a

series of works that form the locus classicus of contem-
porary liberal political thought. His most important
work is probably still A Theory of Justice which rein-
vigorated political philosophy at the time of its publica-
tion in 1971. The theory expounds the basis of a liberal
and roughly egalitarian state on the basis of a contract
theory, reviving the traditions of Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau and, most closely, Kant. In doing so, Rawls
turned the tide of utilitarian thinking in political philos-
ophy. Rawls’s model introduces key techniques and
methodologies to political philosophy which are out-
lined elsewhere. His is a contract theory in which indi-
viduals behind the veil of ignorance choose principles of
justice and lexical priority relations between them. This
model is designed to conform to revised intuitions about
social justice reached through a process of reflective
equilibrium. The principles that arise are a commitment
to liberal rights, to equality of opportunity and to the dif-
ference principle.
In more recent work, Rawls has refined his approach,
expressing his commitments a little more cautiously
(some say to their detriment). In Political Liberalism
(1993), he argues that liberal theory ought not to aim at
perfectionism, but that liberal institutions are justifiable
as the outcome of an overlapping consensus amongst
individuals who do not share the same comprehensive
theory. In The Law of Peoples (1999), Rawls extended
his concerns from the principles of justice that ought to
cover a single state to the concerns about international
justice. Communitarians and libertarians provide the
most comprehensive critics of Rawls’s views, the former
condemning the abstraction and atomism that is thought
to vitiate his method, the latter condemning his endorse-
ment of redistribution.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 137

See distributive justice; justice; original position; reflec-

tive equilibrium
Further reading: Daniels 1975; Pogge 2006; Rawls
1971

reflective equilibrium: Method of evaluating and formulating

theories of justice propounded by John Rawls. It seems a
mistake to allow pre-theoretical intuitions to determine
the success or failure of a theory, for it may be that our
intuitions are misplaced or in contradiction with one
another. However, it also seems to be a mistake to allow
formulations of general rules to trample over intuitions by
requiring their constant and wholesale revision. Rawls’s
suggestion is that we work towards a point where settled
intuitions and general principles are in ‘reflective equilib-
rium’, each open to revision, but with neither trumping
the other.
See original position; Rawls, John
Further reading: Rawls 1971

representative democracy: A form of democracy in which

representatives of the people make decisions on their
behalf. Representative democracies are common ways of
constructing legislatures, because of the practical prob-
lems of securing direct democratic decision making, but
the nature of fair representation is contentious.
Amongst the issues involved in designing a representa-
tive democracy are: the method of choosing the repre-
sentatives; the influence of parties; the frequency of the
elections and the relationship between the representatives
and (on the one hand) those they represent and (on the
other hand) the executive and judicial functions of gov-
ernment. Should representation be ‘proportional’ rather
than skewed by political parties – and, if so, proportional
to what? Does it matter if the representatives do not
138 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

reflect the electorate in terms of class, sex, ethnicity and

so on?
If my representative differs from me on an issue, then I
am faced by Wollheim’s paradox of democracy. In any
case, handing over my authority to someone to act in my
name seems at least potentially to involve a loss of auton-
omy. Thinking along these lines persuaded Rousseau and
others since to regard representative democracy as a
process in which the people gave up their rightful power
to representatives with their own specific interests. On
this line of argument, representative democracy seems to
involve an alienation of political power. One response is
to insist on a process of mandation or of delegation with
rights to recall, rather than endorsing the much looser tie
of representation in which the sole source of account-
ability is the chance to reject the representative when they
come up for re-election.
In contrast, representative democracy sometimes
seems to combine the need for democratic accountability
to the people with the need for stability in government,
and expertise amongst legislators and professionalism
within the political class. Government by referendum, on
this account, is a recipe for capricious decision making.
See deliberative democracy; democracy; voluntarism
Further reading: Held 1996

rights: Key term in liberal thought. Rights conjure up the idea

of a protected sphere of activity within which the rights
holder may do as she chooses. The core idea of a right is
that of an entitlement. If I have a right to X, then I am
entitled to X and I ought not to be prevented from doing
X. Rights may concern the not-doing of actions, and they
may be held by other people.
So if I have a right to smoke, in a certain area (and,
perhaps, other things being equal), no-one may interfere
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 139

with me smoking. If I have private property rights over a

toothbrush, no-one may use that toothbrush without my
permission.
Controversy surrounds the grounding of rights and
two theories here confront each other: the will or choice
theory and the interest theory. Others regard both theo-
ries as false, arguing that rights are not fundamental
categories but are provisional and undergirded by conse-
quential or procedural justifications: rights are justified
insofar as they are a way of securing good consequences,
or rights are constructs of legal procedures, and have no
independent moral existence.
See Hohfeld, Werner; liberalism; natural law/positive
law; right of nature; right to do wrong; rights, theories of
Further reading: Steiner 1994; Waldron (ed.) 1985

rights, theories of: There are two front-running theories of

rights: the will theory and the interest theory. Each aims
to answer the question, ‘What do rights do for those who
hold them?’ Interest theorists argue that the point of a
right is to further the interests of the rights holder. Will
theorists argue that rights protect choices.
There are various versions of a rights-founding theory
that founds rights in the exercise of will or autonomy.
Will theorists assert that a right gives its holder power
over another’s duty, and that this is its function. Further,
they think that rights give the ability to control what
others must and must not do. But there are two problems
with this approach. If rights are all about the power of
the rights holder, then it seems odd for there to be
unwaivable rights – rights over which the rights holder
specifically lacks power (the power to waive the right).
But there seem to be such rights – such as the right not to
be enslaved. Though some philosophers differ on this, the
thought of an unwaivable right seems to be coherent, in
140 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

which case rights cannot solely be grounded in the will.

A second problem is that the will theory seems to deny
rights to non-rational beings, or incompetents, perhaps
to infants and animals. This conflicts with our ordinary
understanding of at least some rights, such as the right
not to be tortured.
See interest theory of rights; rights
Further reading: Waldron 1985

right of nature: The Hobbesian natural right, or right of

nature, is the absence of any obligation not to do a thing.
It is often useful to analyse a particular right into its com-
ponent parts: a series of moral relationships between the
rights bearer, the activity concerned, and other moral
actors. One basic relationship is the ‘liberty right’ to the
action itself, and this right is the absence of a duty to
refrain from that activity. So it might seem that a liberty
right to smoke in a particular area would be indicated by
a sign saying, ‘Smoking Permitted’. This sign would mean
that I did not have a duty to refrain from smoking in that
area.
But Hobbes means more than this when he outlines the
right of nature. For the notice saying, ‘Smoking Permitted’,
also puts a constraint on other people: it means that they
must put up with the smokers in that area. Hobbes’s right
of nature does not include this constraint on the activity of
others. If we both had full Hobbesian liberty rights, I
would be allowed to smoke and you would be allowed to
try to stop me. What would be missing is any moral con-
straint on you or me, any sense of not being allowed to do
certain things. Hobbes’s right of nature is like a sign,
hanging up in the state of nature which says, ‘Anything
Permitted’.
See natural rights/conventional rights
Further reading: Finnis 1980; Hobbes 1996
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 141

right to do wrong: Is there a right to do wrong? Do those who

picket the funerals of US servicemen, claiming that their
deaths are a result of US toleration of homosexuality, act
wrongly, but within their rights? If there is, then we seem
to be committed to a two-level moral theory, in which
autonomy (the right to do wrong) sometimes trumps the
judgement of the individual act. The existence of a right
to do wrong will be a problem for some unsophisticated
consequentialists, such as act-utilitarians.
See consequentialism
Further reading: Waldron 1981

Rorty, Richard (1931–): Richard Rorty is one of the most

important of US philosophers, out of the leftist tradition
and advocates pragmatism in the tradition of Dewey.
Rorty’s social thought is in some ways rather con-
ventional American liberalism, in which he celebrates
the end of ideology. This fits with his opposition to
looking for secure foundations for knowledge – his ‘anti-
foundationalism’, and can be tracked back to his first
major work: The Linguistic Turn (1992). The argument
is further extended in his major work, Philosophy and the
Mirror of Nature. If philosophy turns linguistic, then this
is likely to have dire consequences for political and philo-
sophical views that see philosophy as the mirror of
nature, and think that nature provides secure founda-
tions for radical social change. Thus he attacks the whole
project of a realist theory of knowledge and the incursion
of ‘scientism’ – a crude natural scientific model of knowl-
edge – into the humanities, including philosophy.
In ‘The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy’, Rorty
defends Rawls against the communitarians and, unsur-
prisingly, attacks perfectionist accounts of the good life.
Rorty is enormously prolific, and is a public intel-
lectual, engaging in political controversy and accessible
142 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

writing. In Philosophy and Social Hope, which is part

autobiographical, he writes for a general audience on
political and moral matters, articulating a pragmatist and
liberal – and distinctively American – account of social
life.
Further reading: Calder 2007; Geras 1997; Rorty
1979; Rorty 1989; Rorty 1992

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78): In The Social Contract of

1762 Rousseau aims to show how men can be free under
the rule of law. Like other social contract theorists he
contrast the state of man in the state of nature with the
state of man in a governed society, but the comparison is
not to the advantage of the latter. Man, who is born free,
but everywhere is in chains, seems to lose freedom with
the advent of private property and government, even rep-
resentative democratic government. This can only be
overcome if, somehow, we rule ourselves. The mecha-
nism for this is the general will. If we each think carefully
and impartially about the best interests of the society as
a whole, then we will come to discover the general will.
In acting in accordance with the general will, we act in
accordance both with our best interests and in accor-
dance with our own will.
There are two features of Rousseau’s society that are
essential if his system is to function. First, the citizens of
Rousseau’s society are equal before the law. Second, they
are also roughly equal with respect to their social stand-
ing and economic circumstances. It is only if this is the
case that the citizens will be truly independent of each
other. True independence is needed if the citizens are to
make laws as their reason dictates. This is because social
and economic inequalities allow the wealthy to put pres-
sure on the poor, with the result that neither rich nor
poor have the common good in mind when they choose
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 143

which laws to enact. Here, Rousseau’s views contrast

with those of the liberal: on liberal views, what matters
is equality before the law; equality before the law is com-
patible with all kinds of social and economic inequali-
ties. Rousseau also delivers a criticism of representative
government – those who follow Rousseau often argue
for forms of direct and participatory democracy in order
to narrow the gap between citizens and the decisions
that, according to Rousseau, they alone have the right to
make.
See civic republicanism; general will; liberty; social
contract; voluntarism
Further reading: Bertram 2003; Dent 2005

S
self-ownership: Self-ownership refers to the idea that persons
own themselves. The principle that persons own them-
selves is a foundational principle for many libertarians, it
is defended by some liberals, and it has great importance
for distributive justice. If persons own themselves, it
seems reasonable to say that they own their talents and
abilities. If they own their talents and abilities it seems to
follow, on many accounts of appropriation, that they
own the fruits of those talents. But, since there is a wide
variety of talents and abilities, then there will be a wide
variety of returns to individuals. So the claim that indi-
viduals own themselves seems to licence widespread
inequality. Moreover, self-ownership seems to fit well
with some of our intuitive responses to speculations
about the use of body parts (eye lottery).
The most important historical discussion of self-
ownership is found in Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil
Government, where he asserts that ‘every man has a
144 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

property in his own person’. The idea also seems implicit

in some socialist accounts of exploitation, which condemn
capitalist theft of what the worker rightly owns – the fruits
of their labour. Robert Nozick has asserted the thesis that
individuals own themselves, and argued that self-owner-
ship is a necessary condition for securing respect for
persons. Because this thesis leads to unequal holdings, and
because those unequal holdings can justly be transferred
by consenting adults, he has endorsed the ensuing unequal
distribution of resources as just.
Both the notion of self-ownership and the thesis that
we own ourselves have been criticised, however. It is
arguable that, although this is my right hand, I don’t, in
any clear sense, own it because ownership mischarac-
terises the sort of relation I have to it. Further, it is sug-
gested that what is at stake in concerns about the control
of my body parts is best characterised as individual
autonomy, not the infringement of a set of property rela-
tions. Finally, the account of appropriation associated
with self-ownership has been criticised.
See Chamberlain, Wilt; Cohen, Gerald A.; distributive
justice; equality; entitlement theory; eye lottery; Locke,
John; Nozick, Robert
Further reading: Cohen 1986; Nozick 1974

social contract: The notion of a ‘social contract’ – a contract

made by citizens to transfer certain rights to a state – pro-
vides a way of considering the rights and obligations of a
state towards its citizens, and their rights and obligations
towards it.
Hobbes’s, Locke’s and Rousseau’s accounts of the social
contract can each be divided into two related accounts.
First, each provides an account of the purpose(s) of the
contract. More specifically, each argues that the contract
must fulfill a certain purpose, or certain purposes, because
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 145

life without a state, in a state of nature, would be intoler-

able in certain ways. For example, Hobbes argues that the
purpose of the contract is to overcome certain causes of
‘war’ in a state of nature. Secondly, each philosopher pro-
vides an account of the content of the contract. This
includes claims about (1) which rights are transferred by
the contract, (2) to whom they are transferred, (3) with
whom the contract is made, and (4) whether the contract
is revocable and, if so, when. For example, Locke claims
(1) that the contract transfers the natural right (and duty)
to enforce certain moral rights, and (2) that this is trans-
ferred to a government.
Contract theories have been widely criticized for the
artificiality of the model by which they seek to establish
the justification and legitimacy of a state. But the status
of this criticism is difficult to pin down. Contract the-
orists can accept the charge of artificiality, and sensible
ones will do so, yet argue that it misses the point of secur-
ing rational foundations. More sophisticated critics,
including communitarians, will question both the desir-
ability and the sense of playing the hypothetical contract
game, when there are other and better resources on which
to draw, either in facts about human nature, moral trad-
itions, or elsewhere.
See consent; fairness, principle of; Hobbes, Thomas;
Locke, John; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; political obliga-
tion; state of nature
Further reading: Boucher 1993; Hampton 1986

socialism: Socialism is a term that now refers to a diffuse

family of ideological positions associated with the polit-
ical left. Amongst the common features of this family of
views is: some sort of commitment to common ownership
of the means of production, a commitment to equality
and, more specifically, often a commitment to some sort
146 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

of equality of outcome or welfare equality, and political

and social collectivism. It is perhaps easier to mark out
socialist thought from its critics on either side: unlike
communism, socialists do not advocate either the aboli-
tion of private property in entirety, nor do they forsee, or
intend, the violent overthrow of the capitalist state. At
the same time, unlike social democrats and liberal egali-
tarians, socialists do not concede that the essential levers
of economic control would remain in private hands.
However, because the term now has considerable ideo-
logical weight and emotional appeal, but little or no
precise analytical value, it is approaching redundancy in
political philosophy.
See anarchism
Further reading: Parekh 1975

speciesism: Term coined by Richard D. Ryder which aims to

connect human attitudes to animals and plants with forms
of unjust discrimination between different individuals
within the same species – such as racism and sexism. Thus
speciesism as a term seeks to trade on the antipathies
towards racism and sexism and harness them to the idea
of unjust discrimination against non-human animals. The
critique of racism did not deny any differences between
races, just as sexism did not deny biological differences
between sexes. However, it did deny that such differences
were morally relevant, or that they ought to determine
distribution of powers, rights resources and so on.
Likewise, the term speciesism seeks to deny that the
obvious differences between species are relevant to their
moral status.
Obviously, the degree to which this charge hits home
will depend on the account of moral relevance that is
offered. For some utilitarians the question of moral status
reduces to the question of the avoidance of pain. Since
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 147

non-human animals clearly feel pain, then a non-

speciesist account of justice will give a high priority to
their interest in not feeling pain, and so on. But, in con-
trast, if moral value is said to derive from a rational
capacity, such as an ability to formulate moral principles
or to use language or some other Kantian formulation,
then the dividing line will fall differently. However, it
won’t fall at the species divide, and this is the point of the
charge. On a rational capacities account, both babies and
those suffering very great mental impairment will be
denied the concern which is properly owed to other
humans. Whichever way the moral cut goes, it does not
seem to coincide with the species divide. Consequently,
species-specific attitudes and forms of behaviour seem
just as arbitrary as racism.
See discrimination; justice
Further reading: Singer 1995

state of nature: It is not surprising that the state of nature

forms a component part of many structured conceptions
of political philosophy: essentially it involves understand-
ing what the world would be like in the absence of polit-
ical authority. There are at least three aspects to this. One
sort of state of nature concerns the way in which humans
behave before the institution of political authority – in
order to discover this, anthropological and archaeological
work needs to be done. The second is to consider what
happens to societies when political order breaks down:
concrete examples of mass looting after natural disasters
give support for a pessimistic evaluation here. But lastly,
the state of nature refers to a hypothetical condition which
is useful for discussing several different questions, includ-
ing: the purpose of the state, and the needs that must be
met by the state that cannot be met in the state of nature;
the limits of the state – the justification of infringements of
148 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

natural autonomy, the role of morality in the shift from the

state of nature to a political society, and the mix between
those obligations and duties that are natural and those that
are the product of social relationships.
Whilst Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all drew on
anthropological and historical data in specifying their
pictures of a state of nature, it is the third hypothetical
and abstracted conception that does the real work in
contemporary political philosophy. Thus both Rawls
and Nozick employ state of nature theorising, but in
markedly different ways. For Nozick, the state of nature
is a quasi-historical phenomenon, which lays down limits
on the possible establishment and development of the
state. For Rawls, the closest to a state of nature theory is
his conception of the original position – where the surro-
gate state of nature acts as a decision procedure in estab-
lishing principles of justice.
The power of a state of nature hypothesis stems from
the way in which it analytically differentiates between
political societies and human nature. But this is precisely
its weakness: not only communitarians but also those
who seek a more empirically freighted theory will find
state of nature theorising excessively abstract.
See Hobbes, Thomas; Locke, John; Nozick, Robert;
original position; Rawls, John; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Further reading: Boucher and Kelly (eds) 1994

state of war: Is the state of nature a state of war? Locke makes

a clear distinction between the state of nature and the
state of war and there seems a fairly clear reference to
Hobbes (‘which however some men have confused’) in
§19 of the Second Treatise. The key difference is this: if
individuals in the state of nature behave rationally – that
is – according to the law of nature, then it will be a state
of peace. But unfortunately they don’t. The state of peace
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 149

falls apart because of irrational action that is contrary to

the law of nature. (For Hobbes the state of war was not
a product of irrational but of rational behaviour.)
Irrational people who harm others for their own gain, or
fail to get the proportions right when they avail them-
selves of the executive power of the law of nature, resort
to force contrary to the law of nature. And it’s the use of
force contrary to the law of nature, in the state of nature,
that transforms it into the state of war. Nonetheless, for
Locke, that use of force, though it might be likely, is not
inevitable. However, Locke is perhaps a little ambivalent
in his account of the state of war, and it is easy to see why.
He is pulled towards giving an optimistic account of life
in the state of nature, by the need to defend only limited,
not absolute government. But he is pulled to giving a pes-
simistic account, because if the picture is too rosy then
there is no incentive to leave the state of nature. For
Locke then, we are faced with a series of inconveniences
in the state of nature.
See Hobbes, Thomas; Locke, John; social contract;
voluntarism
Further reading: Boucher and Kelly (eds) (1994)

sufficiency: In an important article called ‘Equality as a

Moral Ideal’, Harry G. Frankfurt suggests that egalitar-
ians misidentify the morally relevant properties of dis-
tributive arrangements. We should not ask whether these
arrangements manifest equality, but whether there are
sufficient resources for individuals. He analyses the
notion of sufficiency in some depth, making it clear, for
example, that there may be arrangements of holdings
where equality acts against the interests of everyone
involved, by condemning all to the equality of certain
death. Equality is no good to us if we all have insufficient
resources for life. Like Nozick, Frankfurt directs some of
150 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

his argument directly against Rawls, arguing that ‘the

only morally compelling reason for trying to make the
worse off better off is, in my judgement, that their lives
are in some degree bad lives.’ But the worse off may not
have bad lives. It may be that those who are worse off still
have sufficient, in the sense that it may be reasonable for
them to be content with having no more than they have.
A concern with ensuring that people have sufficient may,
therefore, cut against egalitarianism.
See capabilities approach
Further reading: Frankfurt 1987

T
tacit consent: Term used by John Locke and others to derive
a political obligation in the absence of expressly under-
taking one. Locke’s argument is that when you do a
certain thing or series of things you in fact silently consent
to have obligations placed upon you. Express consent is
given by saying, ‘I agree to obey the government.’ Tacit
consent is given when I do X, and X entails or means or
equals saying, ‘I agree to obey the government.’ In partic-
ular, Locke thinks that by quietly enjoying the protection
of the state you give it your tacit consent.
Tacit consent is not the same as a derivation of politi-
cal obligation that looks at first quite similar; the notion
that we should obey the government because it is fair to
do so. See principle of fairness. In the case of tacit
consent, the putative subject of the government does
some act and that act means or entails or equals consent
to the government. On the fairness account, something
received by the putative subject entails that she owes obe-
dience to the government. There is no intermediate
step where doing or receiving something is held to entail
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 151

consent. So, on the fairness account, one might want to

suggest that receipt of state benefits incurred an obliga-
tion to obey the government because it would be fair to
do so. But one need not say that consent was given at the
same time as the benefits were received. On the tacit
consent account, a disobedient subject is doing some-
thing contradictory whereas on a fairness account a dis-
obedient subject is ungrateful.
Further reading: Simmons 1976

teleology: A theory is a teleology if it posits an entity with a

proper or natural purpose (telos) or end. Those theories
that understand human society as having a proper end to
which we either are or ought to be directing our energies
are teleological theories. If the purpose or end is a moral
one, then teleological theories provide a reason for adopt-
ing perfectionism as state policy: the state ought to do
what it can to promote the end state, to get our lives to
match up more closely to the end state. Moral teleologies
of this form are found in almost all religious conceptions
of the good society, in Aristotelian and essentialist
accounts, in Marx’s account of a society in which distrib-
ution is on the basis of need and alienation is abolished,
and in one variety of perfectionist liberalism in which the
good life is identified as the autonomous life. Teleological
theories of this form can be contrasted with theories of
justice that insist on the priority of the right over the good.
Teleological theories also occur in the philosophy of
social explanation, where they aim to explain social phe-
nomena in terms of their ends or functions. This is con-
troversial. In some cases, where a conscious social agent,
with aims and purposes, lies behind a teleological expla-
nation, that teleological explanation seems solid. In other
cases, where the explanation involves the summoning up
of a conscious actor, or just the hope that some mechanism
152 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

might be discovered at a later date, the accounts provided

by teleological objections look flawed.
See functionalism; Macintyre, Alasdair
Further reading: Macintyre 1981

Thomas Aquinas (1226–74): A medieval theologian and

thinker who revived Aristotelian thinking and articulated
a political philosophy based on Natural Law.
His most important work is the Summa Theologiae a
massive account of the theological and philosophical
basis of the state – which is formed by four types of laws:
eternal law, natural law, divine law and human (positive)
law. One crucial contrast in this scheme is between
human (positive) law and natural law, which is given by
God. If the two conflict, then the positive law cannot be
binding, so that any earthly authority must be limited by
the constraints of natural law. In this way, and despite his
Aristotelianism, Thomas Aquinas prefigures John Locke
and natural right theorists who formulate a roughly
liberal account of limited government.
Thomas Aquinas’s most discussed work nowadays is
his elaboration of just war theory. Unusually he attempts
to apply natural law to the regulation of relations
between states, and this leads him to articulate the basis
of justified warfare between two enemies. He goes on to
make the crucial distinction between the justification of
going to war, jus ad bellum, and the justice of various
actions taken within a context of war, jus in bello, in a
way that is still of primary concern to theorists – and
politicians – today.
See Aristotle; natural law/positive law
Further reading: Kenny 1980; Walzer 1977

toleration: The demand for religious toleration is associated

with the Enlightenment, and rational, liberal values and
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 153

principles of justice. It is perhaps most strongly articu-

lated in Locke’s A Letter concerning Toleration, in which
he argues that toleration is required not only because sup-
pression of religious disagreement is unjust but also
because it is impossible, and the attempt to secure it is
counterproductive. However, Locke excludes atheists
from toleration, since they are not to be trusted.
Mill presents a less exclusive case in On Liberty, where
he makes a comprehensive case for freedom of expres-
sion, and the toleration of both dissent and of ‘experi-
ments in living’ – alternative lifestyles, belief structures
and so on. The defence offered by Mill is roughly utili-
tarian in nature: dissent, debate, argument help us to get
at the truth of a matter, and for that reason ought not to
be repressed. But this is a contingent theory of toleration,
according to which a strong case is still possible for sup-
pression of those viewpoints which do turn out to pose as
serious danger – perhaps forms of violent religious fun-
damentalism. Contemporary advocates of toleration
more commonly point to value pluralism – the existence
of many reasonable and incommensurable moral views
and comprehensive doctrines – rather than consequences,
as the basis for toleration.
Critics of toleration range from some perfectionists
and natural law theorists, to some feminists who argue
that some forms of expression undermine other valuable
goods. There is, further, a nagging doubt about the pos-
sibly patronising connotations of toleration; to urge tol-
eration is to urge that people put up with something that
they do not like – that they tolerate a burden, or incon-
venience, like a bad smell. But this can be disrespectful to
those who are tolerated – it certainly differs from an
authentic acceptance or even a welcoming of religious
difference as in itself valuable.
See expressive freedom; harm principle
154 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Further reading: Horton and Mendus 1991; Waldron

1993

tyranny of the majority: Term found in Mill to describe a flaw

or drawback to some forms of democracy – that if the
majority is to decide everything, and the source of legiti-
macy and moral authority comes solely from the major-
ity, then those who fall in the minority face unfettered
and authoritarian power. The problem is particularly
acute where there are persistent minorities.
There are ways of understanding the problem that tend
to minimise it: for example, there is the optimistic assump-
tion that minorities will not emerge – that those in the
minority on one measure will find themselves in the major-
ity on another. But these are not fully convincing, and insti-
tutional safeguards and limits are often proposed. The
most common is a set of constitutional rights, specifying
minimal spheres in which autonomy is protected. So,
rights to life, to due process, to free speech and expression,
to assembly, to vote and so on are protected prior to the
actions of the majority. The actions of the majority are
required to respect those rights, and are subject to judicial
review in order to ensure that they do so.
Other ways in which the tyranny of the majority can
be tempered include Rousseau’s insistence that the
general will have only general aims – that it not pick out,
for example, a particular racial group. For civic republi-
cans, one of the best ways of resisting the tyranny of the
majority is to encourage and develop participation in
political life – where people are engaged in the political
decision-making process they are less likely to be the
victims of oppressive decisions.
Finally, there are governmental restrictions on the
tyranny of the majority that arise from the separation of
powers. Despite all this, there is a need to avoid the sense
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 155

that the measures put in place are simply ad hoc attempts

to restrict the popular will, with no basis in justice.
The problem of the tyranny of the majority is a serious
difficulty for democratic theory – majoritarian democ-
racy can conflict with the core ideas of liberalism, with
human rights and general principles of justice. This is a
worrying state of affairs, particularly for those who advo-
cate increasing the scope of democratic decision making.
Participative democrats, industrial democrats and direct
democrats all need to consider how to respond to the
charge that, when they increase the area in which demo-
cratic decision making operates, they increase the area for
the majority to tyrannise.
See civic republicanism; democracy; rights
Further reading: Held 1996

U
utilitarianism: Doctrine in moral and political philosophy
associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill,
and perhaps the most influential philosophical position at
affecting public policy. Utilitarians judge the moral value
of acts, institutions and/or rules according to their conse-
quences (so utilitarianism is a brand of consequentialism)
and particularly according to their contribution to
general utility. The famous formula that utilitarians seek
the greatest happiness of the greatest number is indeter-
minate, because it invokes two variables – are utilitarians
to prefer greater happiness for a smaller number, or lesser
happiness distributed amongst more people? It also
gives rise to problems of measurement – whilst it may
be possible to compare preferences for one individual,
who may be able to opt between different bundles of
utility-providing resources, or to say that he is indifferent
156 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

between bundles, the problem of interpersonal compari-

son remains. Utilitarians are likely to push for objective
and measurable criteria that serve as proxies for utility.
But this separates out utilitarianism conceived of as a cri-
terion of rightness and utilitarianism conceived of as a
decision procedure.
In political philosophy, whilst utilitarianism does seem
to point to some rough ways of deciding about public
policy issues through cost-benefit analysis, it has a per-
sistent problem in securing reconciliation with our
thinking about justice. Concerned solely with the
consequences of our actions, institutions and rules, utili-
tarians may be impelled, depending on contingent and
empirical considerations, to favour unjust social arrange-
ments, such as punishing the innocent or breaking
promises. More sophisticated accounts of utilitarianism,
such as rule-utilitarianism, may attempt to swerve
around this problem by citing side effects of unjust treat-
ment which mean that such treatment is not conducive to
maximum utility. But, even if that is the case, they are
open to the charge that they oppose injustice for the
wrong reasons – that they have ‘one thought too many’
as Williams puts it.
The attraction of utilitarianism in public policy arises
from its concern with the actual consequences of politi-
cal action: utilitarians will prefer the outcome that gen-
erates maximum utility, even when this conflicts with
other valuable ends. But this means that opponents of
utilitarianism must favour sacrificing utility – perhaps
sacrificing the welfare levels of real people, making them
less happy, fulfilling fewer of their preferences, giving
them less of what they want, in order to satisfy the
demands of some abstract principle such as justice. In this
way, opposition to utilitarianism can have a whiff of
sanctimoniousness.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 157

See act utilitarianism; Bentham, Jeremy; consequen-

tialism; Mill, John Stuart
Further reading: Smart and Williams 1973

Utopia: Utopia is a term originally coined by Sir Thomas

More in the book of the same name. A Utopia is a vision,
or an account, of a perfect world. Utopian thinking about
what the world could, or should, be like, functions in
several different ways. First, utopian thought generates
aspirations, and consequently acts as a motivation for
change. Second, utopian thinking gives an exemplifica-
tion of an account of human nature: utopian societies
are human societies and so reflect what must be trans-
historically true about human nature, and not the histor-
ically specific features of individual social forms. Third,
utopian thinking provides a point of view from which to
assess and criticise actually existing societies – by means
of constructing a ‘critical utopia’. Rousseau’s Social
Contract has been interpreted in this way.
Criticism of utopian thinking centres on the obvi-
ous charge that utopianism is unrealistic – prompting
the obvious thought that this is precisely what it is sup-
posed to be. What matters is whether the utopian model
in mind is possible or impossible, not whether it is real-
istic or unrealistic. Thus utopianism in political philos-
ophy requires an (Aristotelian) distinction between
what is necessary and what is accidental. Critics of par-
ticular Utopias will then make the cut between acciden-
tal and necessary properties of human societies in
different ways. A slightly different tack is taken by
Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. There, he is
critical of the disconnection in utopian socialist thought
between the account of the new society and the agency
of change.
Further reading: More 1995
158 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

V
veil of ignorance see original position

violation see infringement/violation distinction

virtue ethics: Virtue ethics is coming to be recognised as the

third big theory, alongside deontology and consequen-
tialism in the contest between rival moral theories. Its
origins lie in both Aristotle and Plato, and its resurgence
is marked by the publication of Elisabeth Anscombe’s
article on ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ in 1958. Its con-
temporary proponents include, in different ways,
Bernard Williams, Alasdair Macintyre and Rosalind
Hursthouse.
Virtue ethics starts not with acts and their conse-
quences, or with rules and our duties to act in accord
with those rules, but with character, and the nature of the
virtuous agent. Following Aristotle, theorists tend to
examine individual virtues – courage, charity and justice
and ask how the courageous, charitable or just person
would act in such and such circumstances. Because of the
concern with the character of the individual moral agent
and scepticism about abstract and impersonal rules of
justice, it can look as if virtue ethics has little to say about
public policy or the just society more generally, and
so has little to contribute to political philosophy. But
this would be a mistake. Not only have virtue ethical
approaches informed the debate about an ethics of care,
which is taken seriously by very many theorists of public
policy and interpersonal relations (including feminist
theorists). But also, if the good society is a society of vir-
tuous agents, then the educative and regulatory struc-
tures of our own societies need reform to advance that
end.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 159

See Aristotle; care ethics

Further reading: Hursthouse 1999

voluntarism: In political philosophy, an account of legitimate

government and our obligation to obey the law which
rests on voluntary action. On a voluntaristic theory,
obligations arise from actions freely taken by those who
become obligated.
In the beginning, political power lies with the individ-
ual. It belongs to each individual separately. We own our-
selves, and are the masters of ourselves individually and
equal in this respect with others. Political power then can
only be created if we hand it over to someone else. We say
something like ‘I give you permission to boss me about.’
In other words, it is absolutely crucial to show that the
institution that makes the laws has our consent. One
aspect that political philosophers often want to empha-
sise about this account is its voluntarism. A theory of
political obligation is a sort of voluntarism if it involves
the voluntary handing over of power from a subject to a
sovereign power.
This all sounds plausible. It suggests an answer to the
question, ‘why should I obey the law?’ that goes like this:
‘You should obey the law because you agreed to. By your
own consent, you handed over the power of governing
yourself to the state.’ It is necessary to supplement the
theory with a series of reasons about why I would hand
over this power: for Locke, these are reasons to do with
the incommodious quality of the state of nature. But the
big emphasis here is on the voluntary nature of political
power. Political power is held by the state, the police and
so on with my consent. Because I have consented to them,
I should obey them.
This understanding of voluntarism should not be con-
fused with the use of the term voluntarism, often by
160 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

Marxists, to denote and criticise accounts which overplay

the importance of the human will and down play, for
example, economic constraints. These sort of charges
concern the best explanation of events and processes, and
are thus descriptive whereas voluntarism in the theory of
political obligation has normative content.
See Locke, John; social contract
Further reading: Hampton 1986

W
Walzer, Michael: American political philosopher with inter-
ests in the nature of justice, international conflict (includ-
ing just war theory), democracy and the foundations of
ethical judgements. Walzer argues that distributive justice
ought to be sensitive to the meanings inscribed in differ-
ent social goods, and that differences in these meanings
may dictate differences in the patterns of justice. But while
this may seem to suggest a form of cultural relativism, he
also affirms the importance of a minimal code which pro-
hibits cruelty, genocide and slavery regardless of the cul-
tural context. Walzer’s key works are Just and Unjust
Wars, Spheres of Justice and Interpretation and Social
Criticism, and he is an editor of Dissent which presents an
anti-totalitarian version of radical social democracy.
See Communitarianism; distributive justice
Further reading: Walzer 1977; Walzer 1983a

welfarism: View that ascribes to the state some responsibility

for securing the well-being or welfare of its citizens. It is
of comparatively recent origin, since the prevailing view
of liberals up until the nineteenth century was that
the state had a rather minimal role in securing general
well-being. But liberals such as Hobson and Hobhouse,
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 161

together with social democrats and socialists such as R.

H. Tawney, representing the newly enfranchised working
class generated pressure for the extension of the state’s
responsibilities by the mid twentieth century. In the UK,
welfarism has led to the institution of the National
Health Service and benefits for those who find themselves
unemployed. Politically, welfarism is opposed by those
who argue for a minimal or nightwatchman state, those
who deny that there are social and economic rights that
have a non-contractual origin, and right-libertarians.
Others who endorse welfarism and the welfare state see
a need for redistribution to combat the effects of the
natural lottery and brute luck, and argue that only the
state can adequately fulfil that role. They deny that they
are thereby illicitly endorsing paternalism, arguing that
contractualist decision procedures would justify quite
wide state provision.
In analytical political philosophy, welfarism has a
related meaning, referring to those liberals who are com-
mited, in their account of the respect to which moral
agents are owed equal treatment, to welfare or well-being
as the appropriate measure of that equality.
See Nozick, Robert
Further reading: Nozick 1974

Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759–97): English philosopher and

feminist: in 1790 Wollstonecraft published a Vindication
of the Rights of Man, in which she replied to Burke’s
Reflections on the Recent Revolution in France. In it she
argued for Reason against Prejudice and against privilege
and hierarchy, supporting the ideals of liberty and equal-
ity which she drew from the French Revolutionaries.
She is better known for the publication in 1792 of
the Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she
condemned the secondary role forced upon women by
162 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

men, and the education and behavioural norms laid

down by men which kept women in a submissive posi-
tion. Women – who were rational beings – ought to reject
such a role.
Wollstonecraft’s work and her reception mark her out
as a pioneer of the early feminist movement.
See Burke, Edmund; feminism
Further reading: Wollstonecraft [1792] 2004

workmanship model: A model of morality and rights which

rests on an analogy between God and human beings to
show that property arises from the maker’s rights. The
supposed fact that we are created by God – and his work-
manship – has implications for our moral status. For
example, we are prohibited from committing suicide.
Equally, the fact that I have worked on a particular piece
of wood to make a chair has implications for the moral
status of the chair. It is my workmanship, and belongs to
me and I may prevent others from using it.
See Locke, John; property
Further reading: Simmons 1994; Tully 1993

Y
Young, Iris Marion: Iris Marion Young’s seminal and contro-
versial article ‘Polity and Group Difference’ (Young 1989)
is one of the key papers in the emergence of a philosoph-
ically grounded critique of liberalism. In this paper and in
her books such as Justice and the Politics of Difference
(1990), Young makes the case for ‘differentiated citizen-
ship’, that is, a conception of citizenship in which rights,
for example, for political representation, are not uniform
but vary between groups and are distributed on a special,
group basis. She asks why, historically, the extension of
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z 163

equal citizenship has not led to social justice and equality.

Her prescription of special group rights and a heteroge-
neous public arises from her diagnosis of this gap between
equal citizenship and social justice.
Young’s methodology is some distance from the stan-
dard Anglo-American analytical approach to philosophy,
because she is quite strongly influenced by continental
theorists such as Foucault. She writes from a perspective
more accurately described as critical theory rather than
analytical philosophy. One way in which this is mani-
fested in her work is that she often does not start from
general principles that would be acceptable to all persons,
in a way that Rawls, for example, aims to do, at least in
A Theory of Justice. Young summarises her approach in
the introduction to Justice and the Politics of Difference:
‘Because I understand critical theory as starting from a
specific location in a specific society, I can claim in this
writing to be neither impartial nor comprehensive. I
claim to speak neither for everyone, nor about every-
thing’. Whilst influential both on political theorists and
on political philosophers, Young’s work was sadly cut
short by her early death.
See Habermas, Jürgen
Further reading: Young 1990

Z
zero-sum game: A game theoretic concept, in which the
outcome of conflict is always zero: if one player wins,
others must incur an equivalent loss. In a two-player
game, the gain for one player just is the loss of the other
player. Zero-sum games are contrasted with positive-sum
games – in which either both players gain or the gain
from one player outweighs the loss of the other. It is
164 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A–Z

controversial as to whether some conflicts – such as the

management/worker conflict – are zero- or positive-sum
games. Marxists will tend to argue that they are zero-sum
games, but some advocates of industrial democracy will
suggest that increased worker participation in decision
making, for example, can have positive effects for both
players.
Further reading: Hampton 1986

zoocentrism: A view of the objects of moral concern that

centres on animals. If we accept the argument presented
by those concerned about speciesism, then we will wish
to consider the moral status of animals. One reason for
doing this would be to decide that sentience was a defin-
ing moral attribute that made an entity worthy of moral
consideration. Moral consideration would then involve
regarding animals as of moral worth. Then we will be
driven towards a zoocentric ethic. It is worth noting that
this does not necessarily involve granting rights to
animals – it is, of course, possible to think of animals as
worthy of moral consideration without attributing to
them properties that might be a necessary condition of
having rights.
See anthropocentrism
Further reading: Carter 1999
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