Combines all three volumes of Hayek's comprehensive study of the basic principles of the political order of free society: Rules and Order, The Mirage of Social Justice and The Political Order of a Free Society. 'A careful and brilliant statement of the conditions of human freedom. It is a major work of political and economic philosophy which sets terms that neither its friends or critics can ignore.' - THES
This is a three-part study of the relations between law and liberty. Volume 1 deals with the basic conceptions necessary for a critical analysis of prevailing theories of justice and of the conditions which a constitution securing personal liberty would have to satisfy. In volume 2, the author examines the theories of utilitariansim and legal positivism and considers the concept of 'social justice.' He shows this ideal to be devoid of meaning and therefore a most harmful and dangerous cause of the mis-direction of well-meant efforts: he demonstrates that it is a remnant of the tribal ethics of a closed society and whooly incompatible with the individual freedom whih the Open Society promises. In the final volume, Hayek analyses and discards modern sociobiological theories of morality and social conduct, demonstrating that man's behaviour pattern has been determined more by custom than by the exercise of reason, and that mind and culture therefore developed concurrently and not successively. He shows how the democratic ideal is in danger of miscarrying due to the erroneous assumptions that there can be moral standards without moral discipline, that the element of tradition can be ignored in proposals for restructuring society, and the way in which the disctinct ideals of egalitarianism and democracy are increasingly confused.
This work provides a study of American women's responses to evolutionary theory and illuminates the role science played in the nineteenth-century women's rights movement. Here the author reveals how a number of nineteenth-century women, raised on the idea that Eve's sin forever fixed women's subordinate status, embraced Darwinian evolution, especially sexual selection theory as explained in The Descent of Man, as an alternative to the creation story in Genesis. The author chronicles the lives and writings of the women who combined their enthusiasm for evolutionary science with their commitment to women's rights, including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Eliza Burt Gamble, Helen Hamilton Gardener, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These Darwinian feminists believed evolutionary science proved that women were not inferior to men, that it was natural for mothers to work outside the home, and that women should control reproduction. The practical applications of this evolutionary feminism came to fruition, it si shown, in the early thinking and writing of the American birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. In contrast to the extensive scholarship that has been dedicated to analyzing what Darwin and other males evolutionists had to say about women, this work offers information on what women themselves had to say about evolution. -- From book jacket.
Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.
Originally published in 1960, The Constitution of Liberty delineates and defends the principles of a free society and traces the origin, rise, and decline of the rule of law. Casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state, Hayek examines the challenges to freedom posed by an ever expanding government as well as its corrosive effect on the creation, preservation, and utilization of knowledge. In distinction to those who confidently call for the state to play a greater role in society, Hayek puts forward a nuanced argument for prudence. Guided by this quality, he elegantly demonstrates that a free market system in a democratic polity—under the rule of law and with strong constitutional protections of individual rights—represents the best chance for the continuing existence of liberty. Striking a balance between skepticism and hope, Hayek’s profound insights remain strikingly vital half a century on. This definitive edition of The Constitution of Liberty will give a new generation the opportunity to learn from Hayek’s enduring wisdom.
Libertarian (in the right-wing sense) political philosopher de Jasay presents 17 essays on his conception of justice and issues that he sees as surrounding the concept of justice: the state, the redistribution of income and wealth, the benefits and burdens between those who make collective choices and those who submit to them, the shaping of economic and social institutions so as to make them fit a unified ideology, and the problem of individual liberty. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
