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In the years between the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the Constitution, American gentlemen—the merchants, lawyers, planters, and landowners who comprised the independent republic's elite—worked hard to maintain their positions of power. Gentlemen Revolutionaries shows how their struggles over status, hierarchy, property, and control shaped the ideologies and institutions of the fledgling nation.Tom Cutterham examines how, facing pressure from populist movements as well as the threat of foreign empires, these gentlemen argued among themselves to find new ways of justifying economic and political inequality in a republican society. At the heart of their ideology was a regime of property and contract rights derived from the norms of international commerce and eighteenth-century jurisprudence. But these gentlemen were not concerned with property alone. They also sought personal prestige and cultural preeminence. Cutterham describes how, painting the egalitarian freedom of the republic's'lower sort'as dangerous licentiousness, they constructed a vision of proper social order around their own fantasies of power and justice. In pamphlets, speeches, letters, and poetry, they argued that the survival of the republican experiment in the United States depended on the leadership of worthy gentlemen and the obedience of everyone else.Lively and elegantly written, Gentlemen Revolutionaries demonstrates how these elites, far from giving up their attachment to gentility and privilege, recast the new republic in their own image.

Ethical Idealism: An Inquiry into the Nature and Function of Ideals explores the role of ideals in guiding human thought and action. The book argues that although ideals are often unrealistic and unachievable, they play an essential and productive role in human affairs. The first chapter contends that pursuing unattainable goals is rational if these goals bring about positive results. The second chapter extends this argument by asserting that an obligation remains valid even if its fulfillment is impossible, challenging the traditional ought implies can principle within the confines of real-world limitations. The third chapter critiques the idea that rationality should focus solely on maximization, arguing instead that human goods are too varied to be standardized. Subsequent chapters delve deeper into the utility of ideals in human life. Chapter IV supports the value of optimism, even in seemingly hopeless situations, for its positive influence on actions and outcomes. Chapter V draws parallels between ideals and other abstract concepts like the equator or the prime meridian, which, though unattainable in a literal sense, are crucial for navigation and orientation. The final chapter emphasizes that ideals, despite their impractical nature, serve to give meaning to human endeavors and structure our actions toward higher goals. Throughout the book, the central theme is the harmonious relationship between the real and the ideal, with ideals serving as practical tools for guiding behavior and achieving values. The book thus defends the rationality of maintaining ideals, not as literal goals, but as essential instruments for human practice and moral understanding. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

How an acceptance of our limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious societyWe live in a world oriented toward greatness, one in which we feel compelled to be among the wealthiest, most powerful, and most famous. This book explains why no one truly benefits from this competitive social order, and reveals how another way of life is possible—a good-enough life for all.Avram Alpert shows how our obsession with greatness results in stress and anxiety, damage to our relationships, widespread political and economic inequality, and destruction of the natural world. He describes how to move beyond greatness to create a society in which everyone flourishes. By competing less with each other, each of us can find renewed meaning and purpose, have our material and emotional needs met, and begin to lead more leisurely lives. Alpert makes no false utopian promises, however. Life can never be more than good enough because there will always be accidents and tragedies beyond our control, which is why we must stop dividing the world into winners and losers and ensure that there is a fair share of decency and sufficiency to go around.Visionary and provocative, The Good-Enough Life demonstrates how we can work together to cultivate a good-enough life for all instead of tearing ourselves apart in a race to the top of the social pyramid.

Islam in the Post-Secular Society: Religion, Secularity and the Antagonism of Recalcitrant Faith critically examines the unique challenges facing Muslims in Europe and North America. From the philosophical perspective of the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory, this book attempts not only to diagnose the current problems stemming from a marginalization of Islam in the secular West, but also to offer a proposal for a Habermasian discourse between the religious and the secular. By highlighting historical examples of Islamic and western rapprochement, and rejecting the ‘clash of civilization'thesis, the author attempts to find a ‘common language'between the religious and the secular, which can serve as a vehicle for a future reconciliation.

1.1 Utilitarian Theories This book is a monograph on moral philosophy and social philosophy, particularly the part of the philosophy of economics that is related to the general distribution problem. It presents a comprehensive ethical theory, together with an application of the theory to distributive justice. The viewpoint of this theory is utilitarian. However, this theory is different in some crucial points, as well as in minor details, from all existing forms of utilitarianism. Moral philosophy deals essentially with the moral judgment of actions, i. e., whether a moral action is right or wrong, good or bad. The judgment is usually based on a line of logical reasoning, which can be traced to a final reason called the justification or ultimate principle. An ethical theory is a self-consistent system built upon a basic, or ultimate, principle. An ultimate principle can never be rigorously proven, and is not unique. Different philosophers establish different ethical theories upon different principles. Therefore, in the history of development of moral philosophy, there have been a large number of ethical theories and schools. Even wi thin the same school having the same ultimate principle, different philosophers may have different versions of the theory, because of small variations in the interpretation of the ultimate principle or in the elaboration of the details.

An exciting and highly original examination of the practices of truth-telling and speaking out freely (parr?sia) in ancient Greek tragedy and philosophy. Foucault discusses the difficult and changing practices of truth-telling in ancient democracies and tyrannies and offers a new perspective on the specific relationship of philosophy to politics.

Examining Dewey's evolving conception of liberalism, David Fott illuminates his subject's belief in democracy more fully than has ever been before. By comparing and contrasting Dewey's thought with that of Socrates, Fott convincingly casts doubt on claims that Dewey offers a defensible middle ground between moral absolutism and moral relativism.

A resource for exploring Ch'en Liang's intellectual development.Ch'en's thought evolved through a tao-hsueh phase to the utilitarian positions for which he is famous. This'radicalization'represented an evolutionary process. To understand this process, the debate with Chu Hsi, and the significance of both in China's political culture, it is first necessary to take notice of the cultural setting-traditional Confucian polarities and their configurations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.