Rawls's teaching and the "tradition" of political philosophy

This article explores Rawls's evolving orientation to “the tradition of political philosophy” over the course of his academic career, culminating in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). Drawing on archival material, it argues that Rawls's fascination with tradition arose out of his own pedagogical engagement with the debate around the “death of political philosophy” in the 1950s. Throughout, I highlight the significance of Rawls's teaching—beginning with his earliest lectures on social and political philosophy at Cornell, to his shifting views on “the tradition” in his published works, culminating in the increasingly contextually minded and irenic approach on display in Political Liberalism (1993) and Justice as Fairness. This neglected aspect of the “historical Rawls” offers insight into how Rawls himself might have read “John Rawls” as a figure in the history of political thought—and reveals that he spent a lot more time contemplating that question than one might think

Teaching the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on education

This paper considers Thomas Hobbes's educational thought both in its historical context and in the context of his political philosophy as a whole. It begins with Hobbes's diagnosis of the English Civil War as the product of the miseducation of the commonwealth and shows that education was a central and consistent concern of his political theory from an early stage. For Hobbes, the consensus on civil matters required for peace could be secured only through rigorous and universal civic education overseen by the sovereign in the universities, the pulpit, and the family alike. While some scholars have condemned Hobbesian education as unacceptably authoritarian, others have cited it approvingly as evidence for a more liberal Hobbes. This essay argues that neither reading adequately grasps the subtle relationship between persuasion and authority that characterises Hobbes's conception of education and, indeed, his political philosophy more generally. © 2010 Taylor and Francis

Teaching the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on education

This paper considers Thomas Hobbes's educational thought both in its historical context and in the context of his political philosophy as a whole. It begins with Hobbes's diagnosis of the English Civil War as the product of the miseducation of the commonwealth and shows that education was a central and consistent concern of his political theory from an early stage. For Hobbes, the consensus on civil matters required for peace could be secured only through rigorous and universal civic education overseen by the sovereign in the universities, the pulpit, and the family alike. While some scholars have condemned Hobbesian education as unacceptably authoritarian, others have cited it approvingly as evidence for a more liberal Hobbes. This essay argues that neither reading adequately grasps the subtle relationship between persuasion and authority that characterises Hobbes's conception of education and, indeed, his political philosophy more generally. © 2010 Taylor and Francis

Review of John Coffey's 'Exodus and Liberation'

On July 3, 1776, John Adams reflected on recent events with joy and trepidation: “Britain has been filled with folly, and America with wisdom … It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities far more wasting.” For a New Englander steeped in puritan enthusiasm, the new prospect in human affairs opened by American “Independency” was, in fact, a very old one. The hearts of the British, like Pharaoh’s, had been hardened; the Americans had successfully thrown off the imperial yoke. God was acting in history once more to deliver his chosen people from slavery. But as an attentive reader of Exodus, Adams knew that their trials were only beginning. One must submit to “an overruling Providence … unfashionable as the faith may be.” John Coffey’s Exodus and Liberation argues that, in the context of the Revolution, Adams’s providentialism and Old Testament allusions were not “unfashionable” at all. His letter provides a consummate example of what Coffey calls “Protestant deliverance politics,” an Anglo-American tradition of political rhetoric that he traces from the Reformation to thepresent day. The book details how successive generations of political actors and activists have drawn on Old Testament narratives and texts – primarily Exodus, but also the Jubilee proclamations of Leviticus and Isaiah – to frame their own struggles for liberty as reenactments of the Hebrews’ divine deliverance. For Coffey, an early modern historian, the English Civil War or “Puritan Revolution” provides the pattern for a “Biblical language of liberty” that politicized religious ideas of deliverance and liberation previously confined to the spiritual realm. The first of the book’s three parts argues that the deliberate echoes of Jubilee and Exodus heard in revolutionary cries to “Break every yoke!” and the rhetorical contrast between liberty and slavery pioneered in 1644 profoundly shaped the revolutions of 1688 and 1776 that followed. The second shows how abolitionists in England and America later adopted and transformed this language by arguing that slavery was not simply a metaphor for the oppression of white Christians. The final section examines the continued importance of Exodus and Jubilee motifs in the 20th century, particularly in the Civil Rights movement. Coffey’s narrative extends beyond the 2008 presidential election to show that deliverance politics remains alive and well in America both on the Left and the Right—especially in foreign policy, where echoes of the “missionary imperialism” of 19th century British abolitionists abound.</p

'The Bond of Civility': Roger Williams on toleration and its limits

In this article, I examine the meaning of the concept of ‘civility’ for Roger Williams and the role it played in his arguments for religious toleration. I place his concern with civility in the broader context of his life and works and show how it differed from the missionary and civilizing efforts of his fellow New English among the American Indians. For Williams, civility represented a standard of inclusion in the civil community that was ‘essentially distinct’ from Christianity, which properly governed membership in the spiritual community of the church. In contrast to recent scholarship that finds in Williams a robust vision of mutual respect and recognition between co-citizens, I argue that civility constituted rather a very low bar of respectful behavior towards others entirely compatible with a lack of respect, disapproval, and even disgust for them and their beliefs. I show further that civility for Williams was consistent with—and partially secured by—a continued commitment on the part of godly citizens to the potential conversion of their neighbors. Williams endorsed this ‘mere’ civility as a necessary and sufficient condition for toleration while also delineating a potentially expansive role for the magistrate in regulating incivility. Contemporary readers of William who conflate civility with other good things, such as mutual respect, recognition, and civic friendship, slide into a position much like that he was trying to refute