Catherine Zuckert

John P. McCormick has become the leading proponent of a new democratic—or, now, “populist”—reading of Machiavelli. The authors of all three of the other books reviewed here cite McCormick as a source and inspiration; and he has written positive blurbs for their books. In Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011) McCormick argued that Machiavelli's praise of Roman “offices or assemblies that exclude the wealthiest citizens from eligibility; magistrate appointment procedures that combine lottery and election; and political trials in which the entire citizenry acts as ultimate judge over prosecutions and appeals” constitutes “a robust, extra-electoral model of elite accountability and popular empowerment” very different from, and much superior to, the aristocratic “republicanism” attributed to Machiavelli by the “Cambridge school.” In Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist Politics, McCormick extends his previous anal...

If, as Aristotle argues, human beings cannot acquire the habits needed to make them virtuous if they do not receive a correct upbringing, and this upbringing needs to be supported and preserved by law, one has to ask how citizens of modern liberal democracies can become virtuous, since their laws do not explicitly identify, reward, and honor virtuous behavior. This article examines the three different answers to this question proposed by the liberal M. Nussbaum, the communitarian A. MacIntyre, and the libertarians D. den Uyl and D. Rasmussen, and finds none entirely satisfying. Ironically, none of these commentators takes account of the educational activity in which they like Aristotle

The present volume of Krakowskie Studia Międzynarodowe [Krakow International Studies] is as diverse as America is. Many of the problems discussed here seem from the European perspective – or at least the Western European one – exotic, even parochial, but this is a misunderstanding of what the United States is. In Ame­rica they are real since America is a baroque, extremely pluralistic country, with the citizens devoid of an apologizing attitude towards the democratic process and debating fiercely in public. The first essay, by Marta Dębska, “A Brief History of Americanization”, is a general, concise historical-comparative study which explains the meaning of this term, crucial for America. Andrzej Bryk takes up an issue which Dębska touches on in the conclusion of her essay. Marta du Vall analyzes the very interesting phenomenon of American com­passionate conservatism as a new version of the welfare state, an issue which has been in the air for a long time. Maciej Brachowicz discusses the topic of abortion, which in the American context is especially contested. The subject of Tocqueville and slavery has always fascinated students of America, and Wojciech Kaczor is no exception. He analyzes the problem from the point of view of a French aristocrat. In turn Piotr Musie­wicz analyzes the question of the 19th-century movement reforming the doctrine of the Anglican Church and the repercussions of this reform for the American Episco­pal Church. Rafał Marek takes up another topic connected with this religious side of American life, the issue of the Orthodox Church in the United States in the context of American church-state relations. Marta Majorek takes up the work of one of the best-known scholars and thinkers of anarchism, Robert Paul Wolff, living proof of the robust presence of the anarchist streak in the American psyche full of mistrust of state power. Beata Szyjka addresses the topic of the visa lottery in the United States, pla­cing it within the historical, legal and social context of American immigration law. The last article in the volume is an exception to the entirely Polish group of mainly young students of America publishing in this volume. It is written by one of the most distinguished American scholars of political philosophy, Catherine H. Zuckert of the University of Notre Dame. It is devoted to the work of Ralph Elli­son. As usual the American volume of Krakowskie Studia Międzynarodowe con­tains its Archive section. This time we publish an excerpt from a work by Richard John Neuhaus

Plato's <em>Republic, </em>as the dialogue is known in English, is a classic, perhaps <em>the </em>classic investigation of the reasons why human beings form political communities —or "cities" in his terms. In the <em>Republic</em> Socrates inquires into the origins of the city in order to discover what justice "writ big" is. But in the process of constructing his "city"—or, actually, "cities"—" in speech," Socrates does not offer us a definition of justice so much as he shows us the reasons why no actual city is ever apt to be perfectly just. From Plato's <em>Republic </em>we thus understand why justice is difficult, if not impossible to achieve for communities, but may be a virtue of private individuals.

This article seeks to determine exactly what Tocqueville claimed the role of religion was in preserving liberty in America, and to investigate the extent to which the increased diversity of the American population, the “revolution” in sexual mores, and changes in American law have affected that role. Despite recent movements back and forth, left and right, between less and more, liberal and conservative religiosity, the broad outlines of Tocqueville’s analysis of the role of religion in America seem to hold true today.

VIRTUE ETHICS NOW CONSTITUTES one of three major approaches to the study of ethics by Anglophone philosophers. (1) Its proponents almost all recognize the source of their approach in Aristotle, but relatively few of them confront the problem that source poses for contemporary ethicists. According to Aristotle, ethike belongs and is subordinate to politike. Because it [politike] makes use of the remaining sciences and, further, because it legislates what one ought to do and what to abstain from, its end would encompass those of the others, with the result that this would be the human good. For even if this is the same thing for an individual and a city, to secure and preserve the good of the city appears to be something greater and more complete: the good of the individual by himself is certainly desirable enough, but that of a nation and of cities is nobler and more divine. (2) In the liberal democracies within which most, if not all Anglophone ethicists write, political authorities are not supposed to dictate or legislate the good of individuals; they are supposed merely to establish the conditions necessary for individuals to choose their own life paths. If, as Aristotle argues, the good life for a human being is a virtuous life, and if, as he argues at the conclusion of his Nicomachean Ethics, (3) human beings cannot acquire the habits needed to make them virtuous if they do not receive a correct upbringing, and this upbringing needs to be supported and preserved by correct legislation, it is not clear how citizens of liberal democracies can become virtuous, because the laws of their regime do not explicitly identify, reward, and honor virtuous behavior. Contemporary ethicists who have addressed this question have proposed three very different answers to the question of how virtue ethics ought to be related to politics in modern nation-states. Martha Nussbaum advocates an "Aristotelian social democracy" which seeks to provide all human beings with the capacities--intellectual and moral as well as material--they need to choose the best way of life. (4) Arguing that the modern nation-state is incapable of providing its citizens with the education they need to live a good life, Alasdair MacIntyre looks to smaller, tradition-based communities. (5) But, because political action is coercive and truly ethical or virtuous action is voluntary, Douglas den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen insist, ethics and politics should be strictly separated. In this article I will examine each of these attempts to revive an Aristotelian understanding of ethics, bringing out the advantages and problems involved, as well as showing the ways in which the three different proposals intersect. All three of these contemporary attempts to appropriate an Aristotelian understanding of ethics in a liberal democratic political context begin by jettisoning some distinctions that he claims are natural. Observing that rule of the human body by the mind is natural, because it is necessary in order to preserve both mind and body and thus serves the good of both, Aristotle argues that there is such a thing as "natural" slavery, which is good for both master and slave (although all or even most slavery is not, in fact, natural), and that women should generally be subordinate to their husbands, even though husband and wife form a "political" community of free and so equal human beings in the household, because women's reason is less "authoritative." (6) Nussbaum, MacIntyre, and Den Uyl and Rasmussen all begin by denying the legitimacy of such distinctions. We have to ask, therefore, what they think the basis of the "Aristotelian" understanding of human "perfection" or "flourishing" they adopt is. The problematic character of the foundation--natural or otherwise--of their notions of human "flourishing" is indicated by the fact that both Nussbaum and MacIntyre have changed their understandings of the basis of the human good or virtue they seek to foster--in opposite directions. …

In this issue we are proud to present eight essays celebrating the lives and works of some of the most pre-eminent political philosophers who wrote in the twentieth century. These essays are authored, moreover, by some of these philosophers' most distinguished students. Their readings can and, no doubt, will be contested; it…

Proponents argue that rational choice theory is a form of positive science, one whose simplified model of the human psyche generates useful predictions of human behavior. But their assumptions are contrary to fact. Their analyses of public policy decisions are cast in terms of the sharp and now largely discredited distinction logical positivists drew between "facts" and "values" or efficient "means" and affective "ends." And their models arouse suspicions concerning and objections to the political and psychological effects of the methods they employ and the policy options they endorse. All of this makes the theory not only less useful for understanding politics but also more subject to criticism by "postmodern" thinkers than it need be. Were its proponents explicitly to acknowledge the "prescriptive" character of "rational choice," however, they would help foster a broader discussion of the diferent kinds of rationality and their interaction in the formulation of public policy. That discussion of the forms of rationality would, in turn, bring out a more complex view of the psychological basis of both politics and rationality. The understanding of reason employed by rational choice theorists is quite narrow, consisting merely in calculations of the most efficient means of achieving any given end. It presupposes a rather simple model of the human psyche in which one part or faculty (reason) figures out how to satisfy the greatest number of an individual's "preferences," understood to be primarily, if not simply, products of another aspect or function, the affective, at the least cost. Neither such calculations nor a broader notion of "reason," which would include deliberation or judgment as well as calculation, is thought to have any significant role in the formation or articulation of these preferences. Adopting the tenets of what is often called "methodological individualism," rational choice theorists treat *I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green

These books have similar aims and are written from a similar perspective. There are, however, important differences in content, emphasis, and form. Norma Thompson explicitly seeks to show that the Western intellectual tradition is not misogynist. One reason that it is not, she urges, is that it is not univocal. Within the tradition one can find several very different views of the character and relation of men and women. Introducing the volume he edited, Eduardo Velasquez states, “This collection of essays does not purport to give an answer to the question of what are ‘nature’ and ‘woman,’ at least not in an immediate, definitive sense. Rather, the comprehensive aim here is to reopen questions as to the ‘nature of nature,’ the ‘nature of woman’ with consideration given to the consequences of pairing some understanding of ‘nature’ with that of ‘woman’” (p. xi). A collection of essays necessarily contains a variety of voices.

Both Jack Lively and Marvin Zetterbaum comment on the paradoxical character of Alexis de Tocqueville's teaching in Democracy in America with regard to the importance of religious belief in maintaining liberal democracy. By concentrating on the political utility of religious belief to the point of indifference as to its content, they argue, Tocqueville undermines the very belief he finds necessary to the preservation of liberty. Moreover, how can the proponent of unrestrained freedom of the press and the enlightened rationalism of “self-interest rightly understood” advocate the creation of “social myths”? Both critics conclude that Tocqueville's position is untenable. I shall argue, on the contrary, that Tocqueville's argument is internally consistent. From a democratic perspective, Christianity represents an accidental historical heritage. By adapting to democratic conditions, Christianity can persist and even have important political effects, however. It provides an ess...

... of his sex" while Verena personifies "the situation of women," Olive, "the agitation on their behalf," and Mary Prance, "the decline in ... with a more primitive conception of manhood than our modern temperament appears to require, and a program of human felicity much less varied ...