Summary
Contents
Subject index
This major new Handbook provides a definitive state-of-the-art review to political theory, past and present. It offers a complete guide to all the main areas and fields of political and philosophical inquiry today by the world's leading theorists. The Handbook is divided into five parts which together serve to illustrate: - the diversity of political theorizing - the substantive theories that provide an over-aching analysis of the nature/or justification of the state and political life - the political theories that have been either formulated or resurgent in recent years - the current state of the central debates within contemporary political theory - the history of western political thought and its interpretations - traditions in political thought outside a western perspective. The Handbook of Political Theory marks a benchmark publication at the cutting edge of its field. It is essential reading for all students and academics of political theory and political philosophy around the world.
The Diversity of Comprehensive Liberalisms
The Diversity of Comprehensive Liberalisms
Comprehensive Liberalisms
The distinction between ‘comprehensive’ and ‘political’ liberalisms, explored in the previous chapter, has become central to contemporary political theory. My aim in this chapter is to examine various ‘comprehensive’ liberalisms, with particular care to identifying in what sense they are comprehensive. As I have argued elsewhere (Gaus, 2003: ch. 7), the distinction between political and comprehensive liberalisms is elusive. Rawls repeatedly describes as ‘comprehensive’ ‘philosophical’, ‘moral’ and ‘religious’ ‘doctrines’ (1996: xxv, 4, 36, 38, 160) or ‘beliefs’ (1996: 63). Indeed, so often does Rawls characterize comprehensiveness in terms of moral, religious and philosophical doctrines or beliefs that a reader may be tempted to conclude that a doctrine is comprehensive if and only if it ...
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