Liberal Rights: Collected Papers, 1981-1991

By Jeremy Waldron

Book Overview

This volume brings together a wide-ranging collection of the papers written by Jeremy Waldron, one of the most internationally highly-respected political theorists writing today. The main focus of the collection is on substantive issues in modern political philosophy. The first six chapters deal with freedom, toleration, and neutrality and argue for a robust conception of liberty. Waldron defends the idea that people have a right to act in ways others disapprove of, and that the state should be neutral vis-a-vis religious and ethical systems. The chapters that follow are concerned with socio-economic rights. Waldron argues that poverty and homelessness are not to be understood apart from the value of freedom. On the contrary our moral response to them should be based on the same values that underlie traditional liberal philosophy. The volume is a tribute to the resources and unity of the liberal political tradition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521436176
• ISBN13: 9780521436175
• Release Date: March 1993
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 3.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A modern classic

"Homelessness and the issue of freedom," chapter 13 in the collection, is among the finest essays concerning the distinction between "positive" and "negative" approaches to freedom, a distinction often misusedby partisans of the New Right; in a similar vein, "Welfare and the images of charity," chapter 10, situates the provision of social welfare in the liberal tradition by looking upon it as essential to the noninitiation of force and the preservation of public order. Other chapters interrogate the Rawls's Difference Principle and the conflict between liberal rights and democratic majoritarianism. Though my own politics are quite different, I suspect, from Waldron's, I found this collection compelling and often convincing.