This collection of 11 essays by one of the most interesting moral philosophers currently writing examines challenges to liberal thought posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world such as the conflicting tendencies toward global integration, and greater ethnic and communal identification.
This exceptional work--a collection of eleven essays by one of the most fascinating moral philosophers currently writing--explores a perspective that is at once sympathetic towards and critical of liberal political philosophy. The essays address the capacity of liberal thought, and of the
moral traditions on which it draws, to accommodate a variety of challenges posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world. They also consider how, in an era of rapid globalization, when our lives are structured by social arrangements and institutions of ever-increasing size, complexity, and
scope, we can best conceive of the responsibilities of individual agents and the normative significance of our diverse commitments and allegiances. Linked by common themes, the volume examines the responsibilities we have in virtue of belonging to a community, the compatibility of such obligations
with equality, the demands of distributive justice in general, and liberalism's relationship to liberty, community, and equality.
It is difficult to speak too highly about this admirable book of essays. Each essay taken by itself is an exemplary exercise in moral and political philosophy - exemplary especially because of the way in which Scheffler connects deep philosophical questions to social and political changes that condition the answers we give to them. Taken together they display continuity, but almost no repetition. A theme explored in one essay is taken up and developed from a slightly different angle in another, broadening the reader's grasp of the issue... These essays display a remarkable combination of philosophical acuity, moral seriousness and political realism, and deserve to be read closely and repeatedly for the light they shed on our contemporary moral and political predicament.
