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Resumen
In a spirited attack on today's liberal orthodoxies, Gray argues that establishing a "modus vivendi" among the different cultures and regimes of our time should be at the heart of contemporary liberalism.
Reseñas (3)
Kirkus Review
A disappointing capitulation to vague postmodern multiculturalism from one of England's leading political and economic theorists. In his latest broadside, Gray (European Thought/London School of Economics) states that, although classical liberalism was well suited to the early modern era and has contributed much of inestimable value to Western society over the last few centuries, it must be reconfigured in order to serve the interests of a truly pluralistic world. After taking readers on a quick tour of Great Political Philosophers--Isaiah Berlin, Joseph Raz, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Immanuel Kant--Gray arrives at his main point: liberalism's assumption that eventually folks will figure out the single best way to order society no longer works in a multicultural world where people increasingly believe that there is no one best way to do things. Gray does not want to jettison liberalism so much as renew it. He is careful to say that he believes we can know right from wrong; he simply questions whether moral conundrums have only one right answer. He asserts that people should simultaneously affirm "universal values" and "many moralities." Courage, for example, might be said to be a universal value, but different cultures understand it differently: Zulus consider fighting a battle courageous, while pacifistic Quakers believe that carrying a stretcher behind the lines merits a Purple Heart. Gray's insistence on hammering home this obvious point, piling silly and unoriginal examples on top of one another, makes his slender volume feel like an endless tome. In previous books (False Dawn, not reviewed, etc.), even when Gray's conclusions were debatable, they were argued with rigor and originality, neither of which is in evidence here. Another John Gray offered more insight than this in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Reseña de Booklist
Gray traces the historic roots and modern manifestations of liberalism; not the one bandied about by politicians but the one based in the philosophical underpinnings of Western civilization. Gray's premise is that tolerance is a major element in the tradition of liberalism and that there are currently two conflicting philosophies regarding tolerance. One is the assumption that there is one ideal of the "good life" and that rational progress will lead all to this conclusion; the other allows for many philosophical paths to the "good life." Gray examines some of the one-ideal philosophies of John Locke and Immanuel Kant versus the peaceful coexistence of multiple-ideal philosophies postulated by Thomas Hobbes and David Hume. But Gray is at his best when he evaluates the human quest for the "good life," modus vivendi. Gray notes that modern reality reflects such a multitude of paths to the good life, not only among different people but also within a single group, that to assume a single ideal is incompatible with modern life. This is an appropriate philosophical paradigm shift in this age of globalization and diversity. --Vernon Ford
Revisar OPCIONES
In his twelfth book in as many years, Gray (London School of Economics) mounts a short, intricate defense of liberalism anchored in his previous critiques of individual political theorists ranging from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke through John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin, and John Rawls. In the spirit of Stanley Fish (The Trouble with Principle, CH, May'00), Gray concludes that a rights-based legalism claiming value-neutral liberal principles is a self-defeating chimera. The very fact of value-pluralism subverts liberal principles: because judgments of the appropriate extent of rights in any given context follow from substantive values, the ideal of "giving liberty priority over other goods has no meaning." He calls for an agonistic "modus vivendi" politics that acknowledges universal human rights with the proviso that the content of all rights flows from the interests they protect. "The result is a liberal philosophy in which the good has priority over the right, but in which no one view of the good has overall priority over all others." Because the argument exemplifies the best conventions of Oxford philosophical discourse, readers may not notice the close affinities of Gray's position to American pragmatism, neo-Hegelian critiques of liberalism, and the historicism of his colleagues from Cambridge. Gray's form and style are more insular than the rich, suggestive content. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above. E. J. Eisenach; University of Tulsa
Tabla de contenido
Acknowledgements |
Chapter 1 Liberal Toleration |
Chapter 2 Plural Values |
Chapter 3 Rival Freedoms |
Chapter 4 Modus vivendi |
Index |