The article evaluates Michael Novak's theory of the common good by comparing it with Yves Simon's writings. Simon's insights reveal that Novak's argument for a “new concept” of the common good, incorporating liberal claims, falters on both theoretical and practical grounds. Theoretically, Novak's version of the common good opens the door to considerable exclusion from participation in the material benefits of society. Related to this is Novak's problematic contention that political authority should not intend the common good materially considered. Practically, his idealized version of capitalism plays down or ignores problems raised by Simon, particularly “one-way” exchanges, unequal exchange, and “illusory services”.

Although the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) did not officially abandon Marxism until the Bad Godesberg Parteitag in 1959, both intellectually and politically the party's ideology was revised under the leadership of Kurt Schumacher whose “passion, intellect, and will” dominated the SPD for seven years following World War II (1945–52). The final disintegration of German Marxism under Kurt Schumacher can be demonstrated by examining the three crucial elements of Marxist socialist ideology: (1) motivation for socialism, (2) theory of the socialist movement, and (3) relations between German nationalism and socialism.

If democracy in the sense of popular rule is to have a significant degree of realization in the modern world, it will have to mean popular control of cultural meaning and cultural change rather than public policy. While the impact of cultural values on public policy is problematic, there is more at stake in political struggle than specific policies. In fact, the most important personal consequences of politics are thoroughly symbolic, and the symbolic rewards of “cultural democracy” are likely to be more meaningful than the tangible rewards of distributive policies. Although popular control of these meaningful symbolic rewards is possible, such control could occur only through the mediation of charismatic leaders.

The treatment of the natural law in the Roman law is puzzling because the relationship between jus naturale and the two other forms of law, jus gentium and jus civile, is far from clear in the texts. Moreover, the jus naturale does not appear to have the dignity most readers expect it to have. This article attempts to sort out the relationships among the three types of jus by showing that the various classifications the jurists use are based on their perceptions of the complexities of nature as a source of right and on the attempt to work out a political embodiment of natural right.

The difference between legal terms such as “person” and “human being” represents more than a question of standing or mere semantics. Within liberal democratic societies, such as the United States and Canada, such distinctions may indicate substantive differences regarding fundamental concepts such as citizenship, membership in society, and the scope and essential nature of rights and liberties. In particular, judicial decisions regarding abortion have relied upon such distinctions in order to articulate some of the fundamental issues upon which such controversies are based.

Feminist critics of Locke perceive a conflict between his promise of political liberty and equality and women's individual and social circumstances. Many feminists point to an incongruence in Locke's thought between formal political rights and the substantive inequalities women experience in a variety of social relationships. Emphasizing Locke's liberal distinction between private and public, these feminists explore how women's actual personal, marital, familial and economic (i.e., private) positions mitigate against the possibility of political emancipation for women. Opposing this interpretation, this article will argue that Locke's feminist critics misread Locke and misinterpret his distinction between private and public. What some feminists represent as a dichotomy between public and private is actually for Locke a multitude of interacting spheres in which individuals live. An examination of these spheres will reveal a latent potential in Locke's philosophy for addressing women's particular circumstances.

This article examines the political and philosophical problem of partisanship—the false inflation of a part into a semblance of a whole—in Plato's Timaeus. Timaeus's “likely story” about the cosmos both exemplifies and addresses this problem, which first comes to light in the dialogue's opening pages. Reflection on the problem of partisanship allows us to grasp Timaeus's understanding of the simultaneously erotic and thumotic work of philosophy, the work of making things whole. While Timaeus is moved by a Socratic love of wisdom, I argue that he implicitly corrects the picture of the erotic philosopher Socrates sets forth in the Republic.

This essay explores Nietzsche's attitude to the Enlightenment, which the author argues underwent a major reversal between his so-called middle works and his later writings. The author examines the nature of this change and considers some of the reasons behind it. In the process, some of Nietzsche's “postmodern” admirers are taken to task for appropriating his criticisms of the Enlightenment without acknowledging his ambivalence toward it. Furthermore, the radical change in Nietzsche's view of the Enlightenment is taken as evidence of the periodization of his thought, which some prominent Nietzsche scholars (e.g. Walter Kaufmann) have disputed.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY Europe produced two major concepts for the reorganization of society: those of Marxian socialism and liberal nationalism. Each was regarded by its exponents as a liberating force. Marxian socialists wished to free mankind from the economic exploitation of the capitalistic system, while liberal nationalists wished to free the peoples of Europe from the oppression of authoritarian empires. Both had a strong admixture of utopianism. The socialists envisioned a classless society in which men would work in equality and harmony for the common good, while liberal nationalists envisioned a world composed of nation-states based on democratic constitutions. Both sought to banish war. To the socialists war was a function of capitalism and would disappear with its abolition. To the liberal nationalists war was the product of autocratic monarchical governments, whose liquidation would introduce a new era of international peace.

Most policy and normative problems with nuclear weaponry arise in the context of extended deterrence; that is, deterrence of attacks on friends or allies of a nuclear power. This article reviews the history and contradictions of post-World War II Western extended deterrent strategy, considers the sources of differences and similarities in the perspectives of the American and West German Catholic bishops on these matters, presents a logical schema of types of deterrent situations, discusses some systematic historical evidence that suggests the utility of nuclear weapons for many of these situations is often exaggerated, and, after reviewing alternative strategies, suggests a role for a very limited “countercombatant” nuclear strategy.

Contemporary critics have treated liberalism as synonymous with individualism. In light of this bias, too little attention has been focused on historical variations within the classical liberal tradition. The “associational” contributions of Burke, Tocqueville and other self-conscious liberals have been neglected largely because they do not conform to common assumptions about the contractarian and individualistic bases of liberal thought. This oversight has obscured perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Edmund Burke's political thought: namely, his attention to that domain known in contemporary terms as “civil society.” In his defense of intermediary institutions Burke demonstrates a prescient understanding of the requirements of modern constitutional arrangements. His thoughts on religious groups, political parties, and other intermediary attachments challenge the anti-associational bias of classical liberals such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Madison, and Bolingbroke. Burke's attention to these relationships marks a significant qualification of classical liberalism's early obsession with the perils of pluralism and its dawning sensitivity to the vices of individualism.

Quentin Skinner's method for studying the history of political thought has been widely and heatedly debated for decades. This article takes a new tack, offering a critique of Skinner's approach on the grounds he has himself established: consideration of his historical work as exemplifying the theory in practice. Three central assumptions of Skinner's method are briefly reviewed; each is then evaluated in the context of his writings on Hobbes. The analysis reveals problems and ambiguities in the specification and implementation of the method and in its underlying philosophy. The essay concludes by examining the broader practical and philosophical implications of adopting this approach to the study of political ideas: the method operationalizes a set of philosophical commitments that transforms ideological choices into questions of proper method.

Rational choice scholars argue that there is no such thing as legislative intent, and that courts should abandon futile efforts to find and enforce that intent. Faced with ambiguous statutes, these scholars suggest judges either actively interpret statutes to achieve the best public policy possible; or they advise the judges to accept a default assumption that congressional ambiguity will be read as implicit delegation of interpretive discretion to the executive branch. Both options pose problems for the American system of separated institutions. Though legislative intent may be impossible to discern, an effort to identify legislative purpose may be critical to assure the maintenance of a balance of institutional power. How that purpose is identified is a problem not only for the Court, but for the legislative institutions responsible for statutory drafting and approval.

Foundation is a crucial concept in Hannah Arendt's work. She was especially interested in modern attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to found new bodies politic. Arendt maintained, however, that totalitarian movements were hostile to the project of foundation. Far from seeking to stabilize the world, totalitarianism set the world in motion and tried to keep it moving. But when we turn to National Socialist ideology itself we discover that foundation was vital to the Nazi project; Hitler understood himself as the founder of his people. Arendt's own interpretation of Nazism is mistaken, but I believe that her general theory of foundation can help us to make sense of the National Socialist experience. This article examines the project of foundation in Hitler's Weltanschauung and redeploys Arendt's concepts to explain his unsuccessful attempt to create a new body politic.

This article explores an attitude which I call perfect constitutionalism. Perfect constitutionalists believe that, properly interpreted, the Constitution requires that our society conform to the best principles of human governance. This belief that the Constitution is nearly flawless not only underlies the so-called fundamental values strand of constitutional thought but also those strands of constitutional argument based on conceptions of the democratic process or the original intentions of the framers. Unfortunately, empirical and theoretical problems result when constitutional theory is reduced to political philosophy. In order to overcome these problems we need to essay a different interpretive approach, one which I call imperfect constitutionalism. Imperfect constitutionalism emphasizes the value of constitutions, even ones that might be improved in many ways.

It is now almost a third of a century since George Orwell's publication of Animal Farm made him famous in the United States. Outside of certain radical and literary circles Orwell was virtually unknown in America before 1946. He had written an occasional piece for journals like the New Republic, Dwight Macdonald's idiosyncratic Politics, plus a series of “London Letters” for Philip Rahv's radical magazine, Partisan Review. In the early 1930's Harper's had published some of his earlier works, novels like A Clergyman's Daughter and Burmese Days, and non-fiction pieces like Down and Out in Paris and London. They were largely ignored, unread, and unreviewed.

The theme of the second Nixon administration appears to be “Save the Presidency.” It is clear that Mr. Nixon views his best defense against critics to be the claim of a constitutional imperative to defend his office. And, he continually reminds us, it is an obligation to defend not only the Presidency, but the strong Presidency.

Mr. Nixon's attachment to the strong Presidency is more than a protective strategy. It grows out of American practice and recent theory. His language and themes are predictable within our political system. In American national politics, substantive issues and questions of institutional roles are continually entangled.

The body of the Federalists [even] were always, and yet are, essentially democratic in their political notions … willing to hazard the experiment of an … almost unqualified proportion of democracy…. The Federal Constitution was as good, or very nearly as good, as our country could bear; … Our materials for government were all democratic; and whatever the hazard of their combination may be, our Solons and Lycurgeses in the convention had no alternative, nothing to consider, but how to combine them…. We should have succeeded worse if we had trusted our metaphysics more. Experience must be our physician, though his medicines may kill.

The importance of the countryside (rief) for the social and economic development of Arab societies whose populations are still greatly peasant in composition and whose wealth is still based on agriculture seems incontestable. Less obvious, but equally important, is the political role of the peasantry and the rural areas in the process of transition from traditional to more modern types of social and political systems in the Middle East. There is plenty of evidence that political modernization cannot take place without a solution to the peasant problem — without their incorporation into the political system. Huntington holds that in modernizing countries where the bulk of the population is rural but where politics remains a predominately urban game, governments are likely to be ephemeral, unstable and ineffective. He argues that the establishment of stable and effective regimes requires bridging the urban-rural gap through some coalition of urban and rural forces which will bring the peasantry into the system. Furthermore, both Huntington and Barrington Moore argue that the particular type of leadership under which the peasants are brought into the political system greatly shapes the whole subsequent development of the system. The countryside, according to Huntington, plays a crucial swing role and this role varies from very conservative to very revolutionary. Three possibilities seem to be typical. One outcome is where peasants are brought into the system by upper-class leadership, sometimes through a formally liberal type electoral system, informally based on patronage and traditional symbolism, sometimes through a conservative authoritarian system.