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Social and Political Philosophy
This accessible book is invaluable to anyone coming to social and political

philosophy for the first time. It provides a broad survey of key social and politi-
cal questions in modern society, as well as clear discussions of the philosophical
issues central to those questions and to political thought more generally. Unique
among books of this kind is a sustained treatment of specifically social philoso-
phy, including topics such as epistemic injustice, pornography, marriage, sexuality,
and the family. The relation between such social questions and specifically
political topics is discussed. These topics include: political authority, economic
justice, the limits of tolerance, considerations of community, race, gender, and
culture in questions of justice, and radical critiques of current political theories.
Updates to the Second Edition emphasize the non-statist areas of the subject and
include two brand new chapters on social philosophy and transnational justice.
This Second Edition also includes revisions throughout and coverage of recent
theoretical discussions and world events.
John Christman is Professor of Philosophy, Political Science, and Women’s Studies

at Penn State University. He is the author of The Politics of Persons: Individual
Autonomy and Socio-historical Selves and The Myth of Property: Toward an Egali-
tarian Theory of Ownership. He is also the editor of The Inner Citadel: Essays on
Individual Autonomy and co-editor (with Joel Anderson) of Autonomy and the
Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays.
Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy
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of Chicago
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Social and Political
Philosophy
A Contemporary Introduction
Second Edition
John Christman
Second edition published 2018
by Routledge
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First edition published by Routledge 2002
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Christman, John Philip, author.
Title: Social and political philosophy : a contemporary
introduction / John Christman.
Description: 2nd Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series:
Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017460 | ISBN 9781138841604 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138841659 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Political science—Philosophy. | Social
sciences—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC JA71 .C485 2017 | DDC 320.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017460
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction 1
The Liberal Democratic Paradigm 5
Preliminaries I: Method 7
Preliminaries II: Moral Theory and Political Philosophy 12
Structure of the Book 15
Notes on Further Reading 19
2 Social Philosophy and the Road to the Political 21
What Is Social Philosophy? 22
Critical Social Hermeneutics23
Social Context and the Role of Social Criticism24
A Selection of Issues in Social Philosophy 25
Epistemic Injustice 25
Pornography28
Feminist Anti-Pornography as Social Critique 32
Marriage, Gender, and the Family34
From Social Criticism to Political Philosophy 37
Chapter Summary 39
Case to Consider 39
PART I BASIC ISSUES WITHIN THE LIBERAL PARADIGM 43

3 The Problem of Political Authority 45
The Social Contract Tradition 46
Hobbes’s Social Contract: Mechanism, Egoism, and Rationality 48
Contemporary Hobbesianism 56
Locke: Reason, Morality, and Freedom 60
Contemporary Lockeanism 64
Lessons from Rousseau and Kant 65
From Consent to Legitimacy 69
Chapter Summary 73
vi Contents
Case to Consider 74
4 Distributive Justice 78
Distributive Justice and Equality 80
The Chimerical Allure of an Equal Opportunity Principle81
Libertarianism83
The Self-Ownership Argument for Capitalist Property Rights84
Libertarianism Based on Liberty Alone87
Utilitarian Approaches to Economic Justice 90
Rawlsian Distributive Justice 92
Varieties of Egalitarianism 97
From Equality to the Welfare State 103
Chapter Summary 105
Case to Consider 107
5 Toleration, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Liberalism 111
The Canons of Liberalism 112
Liberalism and Neutrality 115
The Perfectionist Challenge 119
Utilitarian Liberalism: Perfectionism in Disguise? 123
The Response of Political Liberalism 126
Liberalism, Public Discourse, and Democracy 131
Chapter Summary 133
PART II CRITIQUE OF THE LIBERAL PARADIGM: CHALLENGES

AND DEPARTURES 139
6 Conservatism, Communitarianism, and the Social Conception
of the Self 141
Conservatism142
Communitarianism 146
The Communitarian Critique of the Liberal Self 146
The Social Self and Value Commitments 150
Liberalism and the Breakdown of Communities 154
Communitarianism as a Positive Alternative to Liberalism 155
Chapter Summary 158
7 Race and the Politics of Identity 163
Ideal Theory and Ongoing Injustice 164
Critical Race Theory 170
What Is Racism, What Is Race?170
Racism and the Structure of Liberalism173
Contents vii
Liberalism, Freedom, and Culture 179

Chapter Summary 181
8 Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality 185
Feminism 186
Liberal Feminism and Its Limits 186
Public and Private189
Justice and Care191
Departures from Liberalism: Gender, Culture, and Identity Formation 195
Further Departures: The Feminist Critique of Objectivity and Reason198
Sexuality and Gender Identity 199
Transgender Persons and Fluidity of Identity201
Identity, Injustice, and Democracy 203
Chapter Summary 205
9 Radical Critique: Marxism and Post-Modernism 209
The Legacy of Marx and Marxism 209
Historical Materialism210
Ideology213
Capitalism, Alienation, and Exploitation 216
Marxism and Justice219
Post-Modern Departures 221
The Fragmented Self223
Rejecting the Language of Universal Principles224
Chapter Summary 228
10 Beyond the Nation State: Issues in Transnational Justice 234
Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism 235
Human Rights 237
Global Justice Generally 242
Injustice and Borders: Immigration 247
Chapter Summary 249
Epilogue: The Hope of Liberalism 253

Bibliography 257
Index 279
Preface and Acknowledgments
This book is intended to serve two related purposes. The first is to provide a
text that would be useful in general survey courses on contemporary social and
political philosophy or as a companion text for more focused classes on related
topics. The series in which this book appears is designed to provide mid-level
undergraduate textbooks for students with some background in philosophy but
new to this particular subject matter. With this in mind, this book contains an
admittedly selective account of current trends in (for the most part) Anglo-
American social and political philosophy over the last 30 years or so. The book
is designed to serve as a main text but also could be paired with primary material
from the authors discussed.
The second aim of the book is to provide a general rendering of that material
for an audience outside of academia, though one with some familiarity with
philosophical methods and topics. The general reader should not need any spe-
cialized background in the history of philosophy or political theory to benefit
from this work, though a taste for abstract theorizing may well be a
prerequisite.
The central organizing principle of the book is to lay out in some detail the
guiding paradigm of political philosophy that currently dominates the field—
the “liberalism” inherited from the European enlightenment that undergirds the
constitutional democracies of the modern west—and to discuss particular con-
troversies within that paradigm. It then places that paradigm under scrutiny and
raises deep questions about the methodology, fundamental value commitments,
and philosophical presuppositions of that view. In this way, the book marks what
I take to be a profound shift in political philosophy (and perhaps Anglo-American
philosophy generally) toward asking fundamental questions about its own methods
and bases. Questions about “mainstream" philosophy from various quarters—from
feminists, critical race theorists, post-modern theorists, and others—have caused
many philosophers to rethink the standard techniques of philosophical analysis
that have dominated philosophy (in the Anglophone tradition) since the
seventeenth century. This book reflects the rumblings of that challenge by con-
sidering some of the basic questions raised, for political philosophy at least, from
those perspectives.
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
But this book is still very much an account of what counts as the “mainstream"
of political philosophy. And while chapters are given over to critiques concerning
feminism, race theory, and the like, the bulk of the book is a discussion of theo-
ries that do not mention gender, race, class, ongoing political struggles, or any
of the considerations that these critics want to place at center stage. The reason
for this is that, despite the author’s sympathy with many of these calls for a new
orientation in social philosophy, it would be inaccurate to write an introduction
to the current state of the art in this field without reflecting the actual material
that makes up this current practice. Perhaps another, even more valuable, book
would be entitled “A Revisionist Introduction to Current Political Philosophy”
where such a reorientation is carried out. But the present work has different
aims.
Similarly, the book reflects whatever biases, narrowness, and exclusionary
tendencies are found in current academic philosophy in the English-speaking
world, where “analytic” philosophy is the reigning method. For example, two
broad areas of political thought that are not covered here—again because they
have not been (yet?) fully brought into the parameters of most current work in
the field—are American pragmatism (which some recent analytic philosophers
have claimed inspiration) and the legacy of “Critical Theory” that emerged from
the Frankfurt school in Germany and the United States (except for brief discus-
sions in Chapter 8 and references to the work of Jürgen Habermas). Both these
traditions offer profound insights into questions of political philosophy, and
theorists currently working in this area would do well to include them to a greater
degree in their discussions.
But again, for the general reader who is interested in current trends in political
thought and for the student learning about mainstream social philosophy, the
constellation of topics included here offers, I hope, the best overview of that
landscape. I also hope, however, that the methodological and theoretical chal-
lenges to this mainstream raised here will make the boundaries of that landscape
less secure.
Preface to the Second Edition

The first edition of this book was generally well received, but a recurring criti-
cism of it was that, despite the title of the book, the material in it was really
focused only on political philosophy. Specifically the discussions centered on
the power and authority of the state as a central institution and, moreover, about
domestic policy. What was missing was consideration of social life apart from
formal, legally structured governmental institutions in a single nation state. For
this reason two new chapters have been added. In the first (Chapter 2), “social”
philosophy is discussed, and it is argued there that this area of study is signifi-
cantly different from political philosophy as generally understood. However,
I also suggest there, and repeat periodically throughout the book, that a proper
understanding of political policies and institutions is not only incomplete but
x Preface and Acknowledgments
misconceived without a complementary discussion of the social practices, habits,

and attitudes of the people living under those institutions.
Secondly, it is clear that an adequate study of social and political questions
cannot be confined to a single society or state considered in isolation. Not only
relations between states, but social and political issues that refer to phenomena
that operate across borders or outside of the jurisdiction of states must be con-
sidered. Hence, I add a chapter to this new edition that discusses a sampling of
such issues.
Finally, in addition to the “Case to Consider” section at the end of each
chapter, I have added a brief prompt to begin every chapter that refers to some
recent phenomenon in the news – recent at the time of writing – that invites
reflection related to the issues discussed in the section. These are different from
the cases in that they refer to actual recent events (though some of the cases do
this as well), and rather than supply puzzles that can induce discussion of the
theories, they would be interesting phenomena to explore in themselves, perhaps
in light of the theoretical exchanges described in the book itself. They also are
intended to underscore the way in which these theoretical discussions are directly
relevant to the complex and sometimes troubling events in the world that we
live in.
Acknowledgments
The writing of this book benefitted greatly from a number of persons to whom
I would like to express my thanks. My friends and colleagues in both the Phi-
losophy and Political Science Departments at Penn State University have been
particularly helpful through the process of writing this book, as have been
numerous other dear friends who always expressed interest and support and made
valuable suggestions on various aspects of the book. An anonymous reader for
Routledge gave me excellent suggestions (and induced me to rewrite a section
of Chapter 3 in a way that greatly improves the discussion), and the editorial
staff for the press was immensely helpful throughout the (alas extended) process.
Lori Watson read the entire manuscript and offered countless valuable sugges-
tions, both stylistic and substantive; I want to express my gratitude for her time
and thoughtfulness. Thanks also to Ella Campi and Daniel Campos for their help
with gathering bibliographical materials. Finally, as with all of my endeavors,
Mary Beth Oliver has been a tireless supporter and a constant inspiration. I thank
her here deeply (and again).
I should also add that Routledge put the first edition through a thorough
review, and several anonymous readers supplied copious comments that helped
me greatly in revising and expanding this volume. I often simply followed their
advice and/or used their suggestions. I here express my general gratitude to them
for these ideas and for the care they took in evaluating the earlier edition. And
I am grateful to Andrew Beck at Routledge for his support and patience during
the process of developing this edition.
1 Introduction
This is an exciting but challenging time to be studying social and political phi-
losophy. Conflicts in the world have opened up new fault lines among people
that make the search for common principles and legitimate social institutions
much more fraught. In both academia and in the streets, confrontations have
arisen that question the very terms with which we might try to justify social
practices, political power, and governmental institutions. Deep and perplexing
questions about how to conduct critical social inquiry itself are being raised both
by theoreticians and activists responding to new dimensions of social conflict.
When reason itself is the subject of political critique, it is sometimes difficult
to know where to start.
For an earlier generation, debates in political philosophy centered on the clash
between socialism and capitalism, framed (oversimply) as a conflict between
valuing (economic) equality and valuing (political and economic) liberty. How-
ever, in the current landscape, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, the
model of a constitutional democracy with regulated but competitive economic
markets has come to predominate political understanding in most parts of the
world, including most former communist regimes. But this does not mean that
such a framework is therefore acceptable uncritically—quite the opposite—for
what political philosophy has now focused on are the fundamental evaluative
presuppositions of that framework, and the perhaps controversial principles about
individual citizens, social life, and sources of value that such a model presup-
poses. Moreover, various conflicts within and between societies have revealed
seemingly intractable cultural, religious, and ideological differences that threaten
the very possibility of peaceful, stable, and just social relations. When examined
against this backdrop, liberal democracy faces questions about its very founda-
tions, raised in a way that forces us to inquire into the ultimate legitimation of
political power itself.
Moreover, increased social mobility, broader cultural awareness, and economic
globalization have made traditional assumptions of insulated, homogeneous
societies in political thought quite suspect. Societies have become manifestly
multicultural, containing (or at least finally recognizing) a more fully diverse
population. Increased international communication has made interaction between
cultures and traditions more robust as well. This interaction has thrown into
2 Introduction
doubt centuries-old assumptions about the uniform identity, interests, and needs
of human beings; theorizing about “the rights of man” without inquiring into
the different kinds of “men” (people) being conceptualized is now highly
controversial.
More generally, in many areas of the academic world the presuppositions of
“modernity”—the cultural and philosophical orientation of the Western world
since the seventeenth century—have come under basic challenge. Post-modernism
in its various forms has raised fundamental questions about meaning, power, the
self, and the possibility of human knowledge that strike at the heart of the
worldviews that inform political and social theory. Post-modern critiques are
also often couched in explicitly political terms, where a focus on models of
rational thought, language, and selfhood that are presumed in the justifications
of human rights and justice is replaced by complex pictures of the dynamics of
power, decentered agency, unstable meanings, and the like. And such power
dynamics are alleged to structure self-consciousness, conceptual schemes, and
philosophical traditions, undercutting the pretensions of objectivity and detached
rationality assumed in them and in the theories of justice they support. Even
when thinkers conclude that such critical challenges ultimately fail, the force of
these critiques have nevertheless changed the terms in which political thought
is often couched. In this way, political philosophy is engaged with debates about
the fundamental elements of thought, language, and identity.
Social-political philosophy is the study of people living in societies, governed
by institutions and practices that mold, constrain, and in many ways constitute
the lives they lead. It is not merely an explanatory or descriptive enterprise, such
as sociology or (most parts of) political science, though it freely utilizes such
material; nor is it a historical recounting of how such institutions and practices
arose, though again, historical material is directly relevant to it. Rather, political
philosophy interprets and evaluates these phenomena. It constructs theoretical
accounts of the meaning and justification of social practices and institutions. Its
main task is normative, asking whether a particular social organization is good
or right or justified. However, it also includes the interpretive, asking how such
an organization should be best understood so that such normative questions can
be asked most clearly.
Social and political philosophy focuses on individuals in social settings and,
more particularly, on those norms and laws that shape citizens’ lives. Its subject
matter is “people,” whether viewed as individuals or as groups, but people
engaged in norm-guided practices and living within rule-governed institutions.1
The most important of such institutions is the state, with its various legal, politi-
cal, and economic functions, but many other institutions govern the way people
live in societies and hence are the proper focus of political philosophy. One
could say, then, that at the most general level political philosophy is simply the
study of power, of the institutional centers of social power that shape and con-
strain the lives of people living together.
Central to political philosophy are such questions as these: what is the ultimate
justification of political authority in an area to begin with; what is the most fair
Introduction 3
and just distribution of material goods and social benefits for a society (and to
what degree should inequalities in wealth that capitalist economic markets pro-
duce be left uncorrected); how tolerant must the state be toward dissidents and
subversive groups; and to what extent should the state attempt to promote the
good of its citizens, as opposed to simply protecting their liberty to pursue their
own good (even if they predictably fail in doing so)? These last issues lead to
more abstract but also more fundamental questions of political philosophy. When
we theorize about what is just in a society, do we automatically (and problemati-
cally) assume only one kind of citizen to whom such justice will apply, surrepti-
tiously leaving out of account those who do not fit the mold? What priority
should be given to the rights and liberties of individuals in a society as opposed
to the protection of communities and cultures, especially when those aims con-
flict? Can we formulate a set of principles of justice for a society in a way that
abstracts from historical and continuing injustice found in that society, injustice
such as racism and sexism? And do the methods that we use to philosophize
about all these issues themselves mask patterns of exclusion, a privileged posi-
tion of thought, or an unsustainable reliance on objectivity and reason? These
are the sorts of questions we will examine here.
However, centralized political institutions are not the only focus of analysis,
as social attitudes, values, and practices of the citizens of such states must also
be interrogated in a manner separated from a focus on government and law. Less
formal norms and expectations shape people’s lives in ways that are often much
more immediate and dramatic than is the case with laws: the nature of family
life, sexual attitudes and mores, a sense of social standing and recognition, are
deeply relevant to whether people living in a society feel well served by that
society. While I will suggest that the analyses of social practices themselves—
social as opposed to political philosophy—ultimately must be linked to questions
of the justice and legitimate authority of state institutions, we must also look at
social attitudes and practices themselves as a separate area of study.
This book will focus on contemporary social and political philosophy as
developed in Europe and the North Atlantic states, and primarily in the Anglo-
American philosophical tradition. It will tend to utilize the language and style
of the so-called “analytic” approach to philosophy, one usually contrasted with
the “continental” tradition. But it must be emphasized that political philosophy
lately has increasingly blurred this distinction, where the ideas of Hegel, Marx,
Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault (considered in the “continental” tradition)
are placed alongside arguments by Locke, Mill, and Rawls (names associated
with the analytic mode). Nevertheless, while the broad title of this book may
indicate otherwise, it should be clear that this will be a survey of recent philo-
sophical work in a particular intellectual tradition, for the most part framed by
a particular philosophical method.
But this geographical and cultural localism should not prevent us from asking
pointed questions about its own privilege: why does a book purportedly survey-
ing contemporary political philosophy say nothing at all about theoretical reflec-
tions on politics from places like Japan, India, Africa, or South America? I won’t
4 Introduction
try to answer that question itself, though our discussion of racism and sexism
in Chapters 7 and 8 will refer to literature from other traditions. But I can say
here that it is a question that is itself one of political philosophy: why are
social institutions like universities arranged in a way that topics labeled in
general ways (“history of philosophy” sans phrase) actually exclude many
traditions of philosophy that occur outside of European and North Atlantic
traditions?
This book is structured in line with a certain shift in emphasis in (Anglo-
American) political philosophy that has occurred in the last 30 years or so.
Attention has moved from asking questions about political principles from within
the framework of what I will call the “liberal paradigm” to raising questions
about the legitimacy of that paradigm itself. For example, through much of the
1970s and ’80s, philosophers focused a great deal on such questions as what
economic justice amounts to and what the legitimate basis of political obligations
is.2 But the various positions on these issues were articulated within a framework
where the rights and interests of autonomous individuals, conceived as undif-
ferentiated by race, gender, culture, or communal connection, and generally
motivated by the rational pursuit of self-interest, were the assumed subject of
the principles under debate. And while questions of economic justice and the
like continue to be important, political philosophers have also begun asking more
basic questions about the assumptions lying behind this framework, questions
relating to the identity and motivations of the people assumed within it, the
metaphysical orientation presupposed by it, and various facts about social dynam-
ics, psychology, and institutional structure taken as true. In this way, controversies
over such things as the separation of church and state or affirmative action are
no longer necessarily seen as merely disputes within an accepted tradition of
political thought—one where the rights and liberties of the autonomous individual
are always paramount for example—but as disputes about the neutrality and
inclusiveness of that tradition itself.
Interestingly enough, the work of John Rawls—arguably the most important
political philosopher in the Anglo-American tradition in the twentieth century—
manifests the shift I am describing. Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971)
is often credited not only with bringing up to date the tradition of enlightenment
liberalism that inspired, for example, the U.S. Constitution, but also with provid-
ing a framework for the discussion of political principles that had direct relevance
to actual controversies in the real world (such as the distribution of wealth in
society).3 Many philosophical controversies were played out within the framework
Rawls’s work represented, a view that saw all questions of obligation and right
as fundamentally focused on the free and equal individual person. But things
began to change in the 1980s when thinkers began questioning the basic assump-
tions underlying that model. Spurred greatly by the “communitarian” challenge
to liberalism, as well as the work of feminists, race-theorists, and other philoso-
phers aligned with ongoing political struggles in the real world, questions were
raised about whether arguments over political principles presupposed an overly
narrow conception of the persons on whose behalf those principles were meant
Introduction 5
to be justified, one that reflected the individualism of traditional enlightenment

liberalism at the expense of more socially embedded conceptions of the self.
Things had changed, however, by the time of the publication of Rawls’s
second book, Political Liberalism, where he attempts to respond to these chal-
lenges to the liberal tradition (Rawls 1993). In this work, Rawls attempted to
recast the basic justification of the framework for deciding questions of political
principle he had earlier utilized in a way that did not presuppose any controversial
conceptions of citizens’ personalities, value commitments, or sense of identity.
He argued that the traditional liberal principles he earlier defended—the priority
of liberty, the protection of equality of opportunity, and the limitations of mate-
rial inequalities—could be justified without reference to a universal, all-
encompassing moral theory but as a view that fundamentally different kinds of
people could commit themselves to in a spirit of mutual respect. (We will discuss
Rawls’s views in greater detail in Chapters 4 and 5.) This, however, indicates
where were are in the current landscape, where central questions of political
philosophy concern how any set of political ideals can be justified for a popula-
tion that is marked by deep and irreducible differences in culture, social identity,
and moral and religious commitment.
This relocation of philosophical attention provides the motivation for the
structure of this book. The “liberal democratic paradigm” will first be spelled
out and utilized in order to discuss various controversies in political life, such
as the nature of obligations to the state and the justice of the distribution of
material resources. Then, however, the entire framework of liberalism will be
challenged from a variety of viewpoints, ones which all question its basic pre-
suppositions as well as its policy implications. Parts I and II of the book manifest
these two orientations, respectively. To make this clearer, let me explain further
what I mean by the “liberal” paradigm of political philosophy.
The Liberal Democratic Paradigm

In one’s initial encounter with political philosophy, the term “liberalism” conjures
up rather specific political programs, ones associated with the Democratic party
in the U.S., for example, or (to some degree) the Labour and Liberal Democratic
parties in Britain. It is thought to be contrasted, as well, with the “conservatism”
of American Republicans, British Tories, and European Christian Democrats.
But the concept of liberalism in political philosophy is meant to apply much
more broadly than this. Specifically it refers to the philosophical principles
underlying the model of the constitutional democracies that emerged in Europe
and the north Atlantic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, regimes which
are generally committed to the rule of law, popular sovereignty, and the protec-
tion of individual rights (at least in the abstract). Under that rubric, philosophical
liberalism as we might call it encompasses much if not all of what is labeled
conservative in contemporary Western politics. (Though in Chapter 6 we will
consider a philosophical view meant as a challenge to philosophical liberalism
which we will label “conservativism.”) I will expand on the basic components
6 Introduction
of the liberal model in the third chapter (and in Chapter 4), but first, some
preliminaries.
I will refer to the paradigm of political philosophy being discussed here as
(interchangeably) “the liberal democratic model,” “philosophical liberalism,”
“political liberalism” (though this last term will be narrowed in scope in Chap-
ter 5), and simply “liberalism.” It is a general approach to the justification of
political authority that sees such authority as resting fundamentally on the rights
and choices of individual citizens, whose rational autonomy and freedom to
choose for themselves are respected by such authority. In particular, liberalism
is the view that the most fundamental role of the state is to secure justice for
citizens and not, for example, promote their flourishing or their virtue. Protecting
their rights and regulating social relations among them is the first priority of
political institutions, not trying to make sure such citizens live fulfilling or fully
successful lives.
So the protection of individual liberty, in particular the liberty to form and
revise one’s own conception of the good life, is fundamental. This means that
religious freedom, freedom of association, speech, and privacy, will have basic
importance. This priority is based on the equality of status that all citizens enjoy
in regimes organized by liberal principles. This equality of moral status is attrib-
uted to all persons because they are rational, autonomous agents. Therefore, the
concept of the “person” or “citizen” assumed in liberal theory is that of an
independent rational agent, one who has the capacity to reflect upon and alter
her choices and to form commitments with others (and with traditions, religions,
families, and nations) by way of this rational reflection.
In short, the liberal state is committed to a kind of neutrality regarding its
citizens’ pursuit of their own good. This is because such neutrality is required
by the more basic principle that every citizen is autonomous and of equal moral
standing and so deserving of respect. And given that citizens pursue (autono-
mously) diverse conceptions of value, the state violates that respect if it is not
neutral concerning those conceptions. This is why the liberal state is also com-
mitted to a principle of tolerance, tolerance for any value system or set of beliefs
that citizens may hold, as long as their pursuit of that value system does not
inhibit similar pursuit on the part of others. The question that we will have to
consider, however, is how to draw the line defining the limits of this tolerance:
for example, should liberal states tolerate those who advocate sexist or racist (or
any non-liberal) policies?
This relates to a question that will snap constantly at the heels of liberal theo-
rists: whether a liberal state can maintain the kind of neutrality to which it is
committed in light of the extreme diversity of its population. The increasing
globalization mentioned in the beginning of this chapter makes the assumption
of a culturally homogeneous population no longer tenable. Along with increasing
multiculturalism comes greater plurality of values, ways of thinking, social
structures, religious faiths, and political outlooks, many of which include views
that are diametrically opposed to certain aspects of a liberal culture. A trenchant
issue for liberalism will be whether it can retain its supposed neutral stance in
Introduction 7
light of such heterogeneity, or whether liberal philosophy itself is just one more
contender in the arena of political disagreement and not the impartial, objective,
framework within which all such disagreements can be worked out that it pretends
to be.
Indeed, what we are calling liberal political philosophy here emerged in
Europe out of the intellectual milieu of the Enlightenment, where faith in the
power of rational thought and the search for universal objective principles of
knowledge, science, and morality predominated. In the shadow of the Protestant
reformation and the development of the Cartesian worldview came the idea that
individuals themselves must be the source of judgments of what is good or right
for them (within severe limits of course). So political authority, formerly con-
sidered to rest on the divine right of monarchs working within a larger natural
(and divine) order, came to be thought of as resting ultimately on the consent
of the governed, expressed most notably by the idea of a social contract.
The social contract approach to political authority initially was meant to
manifest a conception of justice that conformed to the strictures of natural law,
where such law includes fundamental reference to the natural rights of individu-
als (such as the rights to life, liberty, and property). Further, this whole picture—
that political authority is grounded in a social contract—was considered to be
determined by objective reason and applied universally. It is not just Englishmen
or French people that ought to be governed by a social contract while citizens
of other nations can be dominated by a king or queen, but humanity as such
should be governed only by rulers authorized by those they govern in each nation
state. Reason told us so.
So liberalism arose out of a framework in which it is presumed that moral
conclusions can rest on ineluctable reason and apply to all human beings. Of
course, in their original versions, these political theories were never really meant
by their defenders to apply to all persons. Women, enslaved peoples, indigenous
victims of colonial expansion, non-property owners, and others were explicitly
left out of the social contract. So the claim to universalism, and perhaps also
the “objectivity” with which these conclusions were reached, might be brought
into serious question. The issue that remains for more recent versions of the
liberal view is this: given the history of exclusion in defining the groups to which
these supposedly “universal” liberal principles applied, can such principles ever
claim to be universal and objective?
However, before proceeding to considering such controversies, let us be clear
about some preliminary matters that will be of relevance throughout these
discussions.
Preliminaries I: Method
The humanities in general, and philosophy in particular, has no “method” securely
its own, comparable to the experimental and statistical methods of the sciences.
However, one might be able to detect an amalgam of “standard” modes of
approaching philosophical issues (moral and political issues in particular). The
8 Introduction
reigning “method” for moral and political philosophy, at least in the Anglo-
American analytic school of philosophy, directs that such thought proceeds
basically by analyzing the meanings of key concepts (such as “freedom,” “rights,”
or “neutrality”) and combining that analysis with logically structured arguments
showing the implications of particular positions using those concepts. Reference
to our “intuitions” is also thought to be important in assessing specific moral
principles based on the practical implications that can be drawn from them. So,
for example, when a principle implies that killing innocent people is sometimes
permissible we quickly reject this position for having counterintuitive implica-
tions. In both moral and political philosophy, then, much attention is given to
interpreting and analyzing key concepts, constructing arguments built up from
them, and scrutinizing the implications of views for their intuitiveness. (However,
as we will see, intuitions alone are not the sole measure of plausibility for a
position.)
This method of argumentation yields a structure with the following compo-
nents: a set of basic, axiomatic ideas, along with analysis of the key terms
constituting those ideas; a set of deductive inferences that lead to normative
conclusions whose implications in the real world are acceptable intuitively. Such
a model of philosophical method, simplified as it is, is most at home in analytic
philosophical traditions, where emphasis is placed on clarity of meaning of key
concepts and the testability of the hypotheses put forward (the resemblance to
scientific method here is not accidental). But it is important to keep in mind
various limitations of this method, not only as seen from alternative philosophical
traditions such as continental philosophy but also from within analytic philosophy
itself. The most obvious point to make about relying on (deductive) arguments
like this is that they will at best show that some conclusion or criticism is true
only if the axiomatic first principles from which it is derived, as well as any
other premises imported into the argument, are also true. But this just pushes
the inquiry back to those premises and first principles themselves. It might have
once been thought (and is still thought by some) that substantive normative
conclusions can be drawn from “first principles”—claims that no reasonable
person could reject—so that such conclusions are consequently irresistible. But
the belief that “first philosophy” of this sort is likely to succeed is very dubious,
since there are many reasons to think that basic claims (upon which such philo-
sophical systems are built) are not indubitable or even meaningful by themselves,
independent of their place in a system of thought and belief that includes the
conclusions they imply (Larmore 1996: 4–16). This is especially so in political
philosophy, where the assumption of shared starting points, universal values, and
undeniable basic propositions is often precisely what is at issue.
And of course argumentation of this sort never really tells the whole story:
there are always unmentioned assumptions lurking in the background whose
truth is required for the argument’s cogency. Such background assumptions may
concern contingent facts about the world to which the conclusions are meant to
apply, or the psychological characteristics of the people governed by them, or
the sociological facts assumed for the societies they cover. This is not to say
Introduction 9
that argumentation can somehow be avoided—indeed arguments are ubiquitous

in this book—but only that such deductive moves are always functioning on the
backs of countless unstated but crucial assumptions and presuppositions.
The point holds similarly for the analysis of concepts. Terms that wield such
normative power as “freedom” or “justice” cannot simply be analyzed impartially,
where their inner structure is laid open for all to see and understand. Such terms
are as contestable as the normative conclusions they are used to support. If
I argued, for example, that freedom means … (fill in the blank) and that therefore
private property should be abolished because it interferes with freedom, those
who disagree with my conclusion will immediately question the particular under-
standing of the concept of freedom I proposed initially to support it. Such a
conception is only as acceptable as the normative (and other) implications it
carries with it. Moreover, terms such as this are made meaningful by their use
(sometimes officially codified use) in institutional and social settings. We cannot
merely find the inner conceptual structure of such terms in a dictionary some-
where in order to settle political controversies. We must see how they are used
in real life, in legal settings, for example, or in the charters and policies of
institutions or in the rallying cries of activists motivated by them, to see what
work they generally do in the social practices of the real world. This makes
conceptual understanding a complicated matter indeed (perhaps a never-ending
process) but nevertheless one that is not settled by purely detached reflection
alone.
Relevant to this point is an issue that has gotten a great deal of philosophical
attention at least since the eighteenth century: the supposed distinction between
facts and values. David Hume observed that whenever he saw an argument that
proceeded from descriptive, non-normative, premises (facts) to evaluative, nor-
mative, or moral conclusions (values), there inevitably occurred a surreptitious
moral statement somewhere in the premises, or else the supposed deduction did
not really succeed (Hume 1739). That led to the general assumption that there
was a fundamental distinction between propositions stating matters of fact (“can-
didate Jones garnered 57% of the vote in the election”) and propositions express-
ing values, norms, or moral principles (“candidate Jones acted wrongly in
accepting the bribe”). Methodologically, this underlies the separation between
the sciences (the social sciences among them) and moral and political theories,
at least those philosophical theories that include evaluations of morality and
politics.
The “fact-value” distinction runs parallel to the assumption that propositions
reporting facts about the world, so-called synthetic or contingent propositions,
are fundamentally distinct from propositions that merely express the meanings
of words and are thereby true by definition (the supposed analytic-synthetic
distinction). But both of these distinctions have been thoroughly questioned, and
for related reasons. In both cases, it is very difficult to express exactly where
the line should be drawn between the two kinds of propositions and what grounds
there are for drawing it, independent of the distinction itself. A seemingly neutral
factual claim, such as “his father left him at the entrance of the airport” contains
10 Introduction
concepts such as “father” that embody a number of normative ideas about power
and responsibility that can be grasped only by knowing about various social
categories and norms. (Such assumptions would help explain the alarm we would
feel upon learning that the son in question was only one year old.)
However, one connection between so-called facts and values that continues
to be seen as valid is that expressed by the principle “ought implies can.” The
force of this claim, which really lies in its converse, is that no obligation—no
“ought”—can validly apply unless the action in question is at least possible. So,
if one cannot carry out the action, then it is not the case that one ought to do
so (the obligation is not really valid). In this way, all normative claims carry
with them some presumption about what is possible, and that presumption rests
on any number of descriptive or factual claims about the world and the people
in it. In this way, once again, we see the difficulty of keeping completely separate
the worlds of factual investigation from that of normative or philosophical
analysis.
Another important function of philosophical reflection that is not often stressed
in standard approaches is that of interpretation, where phenomena or concepts
are explicated not to reveal their necessary and sufficient conditions (their defini-
tions) but rather to creatively produce new ways of understanding them. Instead
of analyzing concepts as freestanding entities, the project of interpretation pro-
duces a rich explication of ideas and phenomena understood as part of a larger
context, similar to the project of interpreting a literary text. While admittedly
not objective in the manner of a scientific investigation (whose “objectivity” is
itself a matter of debate), interpretive activity brings forth new, but not ground-
less or unfounded, revelations about activities, ideas, and practices. At home in
the “hermeneutic” tradition of philosophy (a school most closely associated with
the philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer but that arises out of the hermeneutic
techniques of literary scholarship), interpretive analysis is unavoidable in any
rich theoretical understanding of political phenomena (Rorty 1991). For this
reason, room must be made in social and political thought for what we could
call “critical hermeneutics,” namely the practice of interpretive analysis of situ-
ations and the language we use to describe them. Unpacking the normative
presuppositions functioning in discourse, as well as critical investigation into the
language used in and applied to social situations, will be a centrally important
activity for us. As we will discuss further in Chapter 2, social situations and
dynamics can be subject to multi-layered analysis in order to better reveal the
power dynamics and social pathologies in many ongoing practices. Certain
gestures, for example—a raised fist, a song of protest, a street demonstration—
have an expressive power that cannot be reduced to the true-or-false propositions
that one might deduce from them. And insofar as understanding such gestures
is part of understanding the mechanics of democratic action, then a fully worked-
out political theory will have to make use of interpretive reflections of this sort
that go beyond conceptual analysis and deductive argumentation.4
Indeed, the analysis of concepts cannot take place outside of the real world
of politics—where meanings of key terms are fixed in part by the historical
Introduction 11
backdrop against which they are used, the practices in which they function, the
institutional sense given to them, and the like. For this reason, political theories
that formulate principles that are meant to be stable, clear, and unchanging in
their meaning and applications may appear suspect. Because of this suspicion,
some theorists will insist that, in the end, the meaning and scope of principles
must be the result of real-world, ultimately political, discussion and debate rather
than detached philosophical theorizing (Young 1990, Habermas 1996a, 1998,
Benhabib 1996, Fraser 1997, and Geuss 2008). All that political theory can do
is specify the necessary conditions for such discussion to take place.
In addition to putting forward an influential political theory, Rawls also
developed an approach to the methodology of political theorizing that we should
mention here, one that departs from merely analyzing concepts or constructing
foundationalist arguments from axiomatic first principles. This method is called
“reflective equilibrium.” This approach demands that we evaluate a given moral
or political view by testing it against our “considered judgments at all levels of
generality” (Rawls 1999a: 286–302; cf. also Rawls 1971: 19–21, 48–51). That
is, we consider the general coherence of the abstract principles comprising the
theory in terms of their internal relations and general surface plausibility (given
the arguments supporting them); we then examine the particular judgments that
such principles imply about specific cases in the world; and we consider the
entire package for its overall acceptability, considering its abstract plausibility,
internal coherence, and “intuitive” adequacy in particular cases.
So reflective equilibrium is a coherentist account of the validity of norma-
tive claims. In calling it coherentist, I mean to contrast it, on the one hand,
with various forms of “foundationalism,” in that it does not demand that we
proceed from indubitable first principles and derive conclusions via deductive
argument from them alone. It can also be contrasted with “intuitionism,”
which demands that we merely look at the street-level judgments in isolation.
But notice that this means that normative claims are always subject to review
in light of new understandings either of the moral principles themselves or
aspects of the world to which the principles are meant to apply, aspects that
may change or be seen in a new light by some powerful new interpretation
of them. In this way, we see again both the role that interpretation will play
in political theorizing and also how interdisciplinary the whole enterprise will
be. It also indicates that political judgments are seldom a hard and fast affair
but rather always open to reconsideration in light of new insights or
information.
In addition to presenting this philosophical method, Rawls also made an
assumption about the society to which his liberal political theory was meant to
apply that has been pointedly questioned in recent years as masking a potential
distortion in mainstream philosophy, namely that the people in that society can
be assumed to generally comply with the principles and laws supported in the
theory. That is, we imagine such principles as directed at societies that are not
marked by social ills, injustices, and a history of victimization and violence.
This assumption, marking what he called “ideal theory,” was necessary in order
12 Introduction
to clearly specify the nature of justice, so that we could then turn to the problems
caused by past and ongoing injustice in the real world.
This seemingly innocent assumption by Rawls has now been the focus of
much controversy and debate, as some have argued that proceeding in this way
blinds us to aspects of society that theories of justice must be sensitive to, such
as the entrenched disadvantages suffered by particular groups due to racism,
sexism, cultural oppression and so on. Looking directly at those problems and
engaging in philosophical interpretation and critique has been the subject of
various forms of non-ideal theory which avoids abstracting from actual social
realities in the way that Rawls and most other analysts typically did. In Chapter 7,
we will discuss this controversy in the context of discussing racism, but it is
relevant generally to the methodology of political philosophy on most any topic.
This rather detailed place-setting about method was necessary not just to be
clear about what will be going on in the coming pages, but also to introduce
ideas that will become relevant when we consider challenges to the liberal model
of political philosophy. For many of these challenges will question not only the
substantive principles of liberalism (the priority of individual rights for instance)
but also the methods by which political principles are justified and evaluated in
that tradition. Relying on detached reflection on concepts and arguments, where
the historical location or personal characteristics of the person reflecting is not
mentioned, will be the focus of critique for those who think that such philosophi-
cal reflections inevitably conceal the more basic power dynamics driving the
defense of theories and policies in question. (See Chapters 7, 8, and 9 for
discussion.)
Preliminaries II: Moral Theory and Political Philosophy

It will be useful to outline the general features of moral philosophy in the West-
ern, Anglo-American tradition that are often brought to bear in political philoso-
phy. However, it is also typically the case that political theories include their
own kinds of methods of justification, as was just described. But the three
dominant approaches to morality that will be relevant in discussions of political
theories in the tradition assumed here are these: Utilitarianism and other forms
of consequentialist morality; deontology (or Kantian ethics); and virtue ethics.
Utilitarianism is a moral view that is (roughly) summed up by the slogan that
what is morally right is that which produces “the greatest happiness for the
greatest number.” In general, it is the view that actions, rules, character traits,
policies, and institutions should be evaluated according to the level of “good”
(utility) they produce. So what is right—what is acceptable or right to do—is
defined in terms of what is good—utility itself. Only the consequences of the
act (rule, character trait, and so on) matter, not its inherent qualities. Judgments
are never based on the act or norm in question alone, always on its consequences,
in particular on whether it produces the maximum good (utility) compared with
all feasible alternatives.
Introduction 13
But “utility”—the good that is to be maximized according to the theory—is

subject to a variety of interpretations, each suggesting a variant of utilitarian
theory. (Variants can also be defined according to whether “acts,” “rules,” “insti-
tutions,” and so on, are the primary focus of evaluation.) Utility is traditionally
thought of as a measure of human happiness or pleasure. In the original formula-
tion by Jeremy Bentham and his followers, utility was defined as pleasure,
measured only by its intensity, duration, and such, as experienced by the agent.
Later utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill put forth more complex theories of
utility meant to encompass aspects of life not reducible simply to pleasure or
felt experience. But in general, either utility is taken to refer to subjective, psy-
chological states, such as pleasure or felt contentment, or it is understood more
abstractly as a state of a person apart from her experiences, such as the degree
to which her preferences have been satisfied (where preferences are just things
a person has rather than something she necessarily feels). Also, utility can be
considered either as something that can be compared across individuals or not.
Understanding utility as pleasure (measured by its intensity and duration, say)
might imply that it is meaningful to measure the different degrees of utility that
two or more people experience (as the intensity and duration of their states of
pleasure). But if one thinks of utility as just an index of the satisfaction of a
person’s preferences, then it will not be possible to meaningfully compare the
different levels of utility different people experience. All one can then ask is
whether people are better off, worse off, or the same, than they each used to be
individually.
However, all variants of utilitarianism share a certain canonical structure
comprised of three main components: (a) only consequences matter morally,
(b) consequences are evaluated only in terms of the utility contained in them,
and (c) maximum levels of utility in such consequences ought to be aimed at
by the acts, rules (and so on) being evaluated (Sen 1997: 111).
Deontological theory is the approach to morality that grew out of the work
of Immanuel Kant, who developed a highly complex and interconnected phi-
losophy of knowledge, morality, judgment, and politics in the eighteenth century
(though versions of this approach to morality have much older roots). In general,
deontological theory defines what is morally right in terms of certain objectively
valid duties derived purely from reasoned reflection within the structure of rational
agency (and without reference to the consequences of acting on the duty in
question). More particularly, Kantian deontology defines morality as that set of
necessarily obligatory principles derived from the structure of practical reason
itself. Morality is based on the self-imposition of objectively valid moral impera-
tives grasped through reflective reason alone (without reference to contingencies
of time, place, or consequence). Reason and autonomy, then, are the basic
foundations of morality, for Kant.
In this way, Kantian deontology is a morality based squarely on the ultimate
moral value of the person, and in two related ways. Moral principles are derived
from the point of view of the reasonable person and are binding only insofar as
14 Introduction
she can impose such principles on herself, and hence manifest autonomy in doing
so (she is “self-governing”). Kant argued that every rational person, by virtue
of the structure of her reason and freedom (autonomy), is bound by certain
universal principles that she is able to apprehend and impose upon herself,
principles manifested in the Categorical Imperative that says that one should act
only if one can consistently will one’s intended act (one’s “maxim”) to be a
universal law for everyone (Kant 1785/1983: 14).
Second, Kantian morality views persons themselves as fundamentally valu-
able, as the seat of dignity and moral worth, so that no act or policy can be justi-
fied if it ignores or exploits some person in order to achieve some valuable goal
(the end never justifies the means). The second version of the Categorical
Imperative states that one must never treat humanity in oneself or others as a
mere means, only as an end in itself (ibid.: 36). In this way, Kantianism is fun-
damentally anti-paternalist—one can never interfere with a reasonable person
for her own good—and anti-utilitarian, since it is never right to sacrifice the
rights of one person for the greater good of others.
The duties not to use people, not to interfere with them against their will,
and the like that Kantian ethics sees as fundamental can best be expressed in
terms of the basic rights that all human beings enjoy, rights they hold simply
in virtue of their humanity and not based on any contract or convention. In this
way, doctrines of “human rights” are at home in Kantian theory (though a moral
theorist can justify the importance of protecting individual rights on other
grounds as well). This aspect of Kantian theory makes apparent how the domi-
nant strand of liberal political philosophy—where the protection of individual
rights is fundamental and the state is enjoined not to promote the good of citizens
against their will—rests on Kantian assumptions, as we will see. The funda-
mental obligation to respect persons as rational agents able to choose their
moral values for themselves is at once a Kantian demand as well as a paradig-
matically liberal one.
The third approach to morality that has dominated philosophical thinking in
the analytic tradition is what has come to be called “virtue ethics” or “virtue
theory.” Arising from the work of Aristotle, virtue theory begins with the concep-
tion of the ideal human life, one where a person’s enjoyment of moral happiness—
where she flourishes in the fullest sense of that term—is the fundamental moral
good. The view then defines a variety of character traits, called virtues, that are
thought to be necessary for the person to lead such a flourishing life, hence to
achieve that good. Institutions and social practices can be evaluated, then, accord-
ing to how they allow the development and accord with the demands of such
virtues. The highest achievement of a state will be to ensure that its citizens
flourish in this sense.
Moreover, human beings on this view are understood as fundamentally social
beings whose happiness can be understood only in terms of the social context
in which they live and grow. This may add a degree of relativism to the view,
such that what counts as courage in ancient Greece is different from what cour-
age demands in contemporary America. For this reason, as we will see, virtue
Introduction 15
ethics will provide the spring board for specifically non-liberal viewpoints, in
particular for communitarianism (see Chapter 6).
In addition to these standard views, moral theorists have been pressing alter-
native perspectives, motivated often by basic criticisms of these traditions. For
example, spurred by feminist critiques of both Utilitarianism and Kantianism,
“care ethics” has been put forward as better expressing the experiences of, and
the elements of life associated with, women. Care ethics stresses the importance
of protecting relations with others and places in a secondary position universal
obligations to do one’s objective duty or to maximize utility overall. (Some have
seen care ethics as somewhat congenial to a certain understanding of virtue
theory—see, for example, Stocker 1987.) What is especially distinctive about
this approach to morality is its insistence that one’s obligations are thoroughly
contextual and local, and that no amount of detached, impartial, and impersonal
theorizing can capture the specific nature of our moral needs and directives (see
Noddings 1984 for discussion). A mother has a set of obligations to a particular
child or children, for example, and those obligations are subtly shaped by the
contingencies of both (all) their lives. So one can notice straight away the sharp
contrast with, say, Kantian moral philosophy, in that the focus is on our relational,
affective, and contextually embedded moral commitments rather than our capacity
for detached reflection and individual choice (our rational autonomy). (We will
discuss this view in greater detail in Chapter 8.)
Other approaches to morality will be mentioned as we proceed. Such alterna-
tives will often be part of the critical motivation that guide challenges to liberal
political philosophy, so that not only the substantive politics but also the whole
approach to moral philosophy that liberalism presupposes will be questioned.
For this reason, as I mentioned, doing political philosophy these days involves
one in some rather basic (and hence very complex) philosophical conundrums.
Structure of the Book

The core of the book will be the presentation of the general framework that
dominates political thought in current philosophy—liberalism—and then con-
sideration of fundamental criticisms of that framework. Prior to attending directly
to that model, however, we will discuss what can be called “social philosophy”
in a way that attempts to separate it from specifically political philosophy
(Chapter 2). We will discuss both social philosophy in general as well as some
particular issues in that realm. It will be argued, however, that any real progress
in interpreting and evaluating positions on these issues will require ultimate
reference to the legitimacy of political institutions that provide the structure
within which such social practices operate. Therefore, we will need to turn to
the liberal paradigm of political thought as the primary example of such a
framework. But it should be remembered, and it will come up later in the dis-
cussion, critical analysis of political institutions will be gravely incomplete
without concomitant attention to social practices and attitudes of those living
within those institutions.
16 Introduction
Part I is concerned with laying out the contours of the liberal approach to
political philosophy, both methodologically and in terms of substantive principles.
We will proceed by considering various controversies that arise from within the
liberal paradigm, controversies that reveal its fundamental commitments and
(perhaps) weaknesses. The first such controversy involves the basic question of
political authority: how can centralized political power be justified at all in a
way that does not violate the basic moral claims of individual people whose
lives are shaped by that power (Chapter 3)? Included in this examination will
be a look at the social contract tradition of liberal thought which claims that
only when individuals have somehow agreed to the existence and pattern of
operation of political authorities are they acceptable.
Next, the issue of how to distribute society’s resources will be addressed in
Chapter 4. If people are considered as having fundamentally equal moral status,
as they are in the liberal tradition, what mechanism of property rights and eco-
nomic justice should be adopted in a just society? It is here that we will take
up the questions of distributive justice that, as I mentioned, have dominated the
philosophical landscape in the 1970s and 1980s, pitting free-market libertarian
views against radically egalitarian stands. More recently, however, there has been
much discussion of how to cash out the “equality” that must be recognized in
all citizens: even if we grant that all people are owed respect for their basic
equality, this still leaves open the question “equality of what?”
In each of these cases, however, the overall liberal approach to political
philosophy will be used as a paradigm within which these more particular ques-
tions can be raised. But we then will consider in more depth the nature of that
paradigm—the basic contours of liberal theory that, in the fundamental challenges
to that model, receive so much critical scrutiny. Central to our inquiry will be
the liberal claim that the fundamental obligation of the state is to secure justice
for its citizens while remaining neutral concerning their individual conceptions
of moral value and the good life. This will be challenged by “perfectionists”
who claim that advancing the good for people should be the primary aim of
governments, with protecting their rights (specified in principles of justice) merely
part of that project. This discussion will bring the fundamental commitments of
liberalism into sharper focus (Chapter 5).
It is here that liberalism will begin to be put on the defensive, particularly
concerning its allegedly neutral and universal applicability. Now in some recent
variations of the liberal approach, philosophers have specifically given up on the
universalist pretensions of classical liberalism. That is, instead of insisting that
the moral values supporting liberal democratic regimes are universal principles
grounded in reason and so applicable in principle to all peoples at all times in
history, these thinkers claim that liberalism is justified only as a “political” device
for establishing stable and peaceful relations among diverse people and groups,
but who exist at a certain point in history. The principles of liberalism, then,
such as the priority put on protecting individual liberty, equal opportunity, and
the reduction of unjustified inequalities, are said to be justified as a useful set
of principles around which some consensus can be gained among an increasingly
Introduction 17
pluralistic and multi-cultural citizenry in order to achieve stability and peace in

their societies. (We mentioned earlier Rawls’s articulation of this position.) Other
defenders of liberalism, however, continue to stick more closely to the classical
model, saying that the liberal framework can be justified by comprehensive moral
considerations, backed up by philosophical arguments, to which we are all com-
mitted because of the strength of reasons supporting them. So we will have to
discuss whether liberalism is best seen as a political compromise around which
people with very different moral outlooks can commit themselves (for their own
reasons) or as a fundamental moral outlook itself of which clear-thinking reason-
able people can all be convinced but which remains neutral toward the wide
variety of differences found in the modern world.
But in either case, we will consider fundamental challenges to this approach
to political philosophy in Part II. On the one hand, it will be charged that liberal-
ism is too individualistic in its outlook—insisting as it does that individual
freedoms be protected prior to any promotion of a person or group’s good. Some
claim that people gain their identity, outlook, moral motivation and self-
understanding through their membership in communities and groups of various
kinds. Therefore, unless the state protects the existence and promotes the flour-
ishing of those communities and groups, people’s real interests will not be
properly protected by it. Amid discussion of this challenge will be the consid-
eration that liberalism not only is not a universal, neutral approach to political
philosophy generally, but is specifically aligned with the “liberalism” in social
policy that we put to the side earlier, and that an alternative “conservative”
approach is equally viable. The connection between this conservative alternative
and the communitarian critique of liberalism will be explored (Chapter 6).
Next, it will similarly be claimed that liberalism fails as a neutral and unbiased
philosophy in that it reflects a point of view and set of interests that many people
do not share. In particular, the fact that liberal philosophy narrowly reflects a
white, male, mostly middle-class perspective about value and justice will be
made the centerpiece of critiques that thematize race and gender (Chapters 7
and 8). This will connect with the previous chapter’s emphasis on the model of
the “person” presupposed by liberalism, a model that will be given increased
scrutiny. In addition, we will consider in these chapters a challenge not just to
liberalism but to the entire mode of political theorizing dominant in analytic
philosophical contexts, a challenge that points to the way such theorizing abstracts
from the actual histories of struggle and oppression found in modern societies.
Such struggles, it will be argued, manifest profound injustice that tends to get
ignored by the traditional philosophical emphasis on detached, timeless, reflec-
tion. These criticisms will claim that political philosophy must be as much about
(actual) injustice as it is about (idealized) justice.
Next, we will subject the liberal paradigm to even more radical critique
(Chapter 8). This will include a challenge from contemporary versions of Marx-
ism that argue that liberal theory utilizes a philosophical method that serves
merely to reflect the interests of the dominant powers in society (capitalism),
and it does this by ignoring the more basic material and economic forces that
18 Introduction
structure thought and value, including the thoughts and values reflected in that
very philosophical method. In addition, the liberal view will be charged with
complicity in a more general pattern of thinking typical of the post-Enlightenment,
European worldview (that is, of modernity). The reliance on rationality, both in
assumptions about citizens and in its own philosophical methods, will be chal-
lenged by those who claim that rationality is itself an illusion—one resting on
an outdated faith in the settled nature of language, in the clear-cut meanings of
signs and symbols, and in the ability of people to understand their own motives
and thought processes. Once it is understood just how open-ended, variable, and
fuzzy meanings are (as are the thought processes, language, and motivations that
inform people’s choices), the philosophical method that liberalism rests upon
will be shaken. And liberalism will be forced to confront the profoundly variable
nature of identity and thought: it will once again have to confront the phenom-
enon of difference.
Finally, we will consider a departure from standard liberal models not so
much as a radical critique of those models but as an expression of the worry
that they are fundamentally incomplete. Liberal philosophy almost entirely focuses
on the legitimacy and institutional structure of the state, or, as Rawls puts it, the
institutions of the basic structure of a single society. But increasingly, important
questions in social and political thought are being raised concerning trans- and
inter-national settings. Questions of international relations, migration and refu-
gees, actions of sub-state entities such as militias and insurgency groups, and so
on have come to the fore both in philosophy and in discussions of world events.
Questions such as the viability and neutrality of a regime of universal human
rights, the ethics of policing borders and controlling migrating populations (as
well as attending to their needs), and overall global distributive justice must
therefore be confronted (Chapter 10).
Along the way through all of this abstract theorizing, I hope to explain how
disagreements at this level directly affect decisions of policy and public contro-
versy in everyday politics. I do this both by beginning each chapter with a refer-
ence to a relatively recent event to orient our thinking and by closing each
chapter with a hypothetical “Case to Consider.” The prompts at the top of each
chapter are meant to situate the abstract discussions that follow in the context
of actual events and social issues, while the cases are more hypothetical (though
realistic as well). These are presented both as examples to discuss and as test
cases for the particular policies that abstract theories may be committed to sup-
porting. For example, the liberal model posits a strict priority for the protection
of individual freedom (such as the freedom of speech) over the promotion of
other interests (such as promoting greater racial harmony). Does this mean that
codes on college campuses forbidding “hate speech” are always unjust? Or does
this mean that insofar as liberal theory implies that such codes are unjust, liberal
theory is itself biased and parochial? As we will see, debates such as this one
will make salient disagreements about the fundamental principles of social and
political institutions, where principles such as freedom of expression come into
direct conflict with the goal of promoting a healthy community atmosphere of
Introduction 19
mutual respect. In all these cases, discussion can center on both the question of
whether some dominant view supports the policy in question and whether, given
that it does support such a policy, that view is therefore problematic. In this way
the technique of testing theories by the method of reflective equilibrium can be
put to use.
As with any finite survey of such a complex array of material such as this,
the focus will admittedly be highly selective. As already mentioned, the philo-
sophical world being covered in these pages is that of the European (particularly
English-speaking) and North American philosophical traditions, and, even within
that locale, only certain strands are examined. Given that, many powerful philo-
sophical movements and issues will be left out. This is inevitable, though no
less unfortunate. Charges of narrowness of the scope of this study, then, will be
inevitable and understandable. My only response, in addition to mentioning
obvious limitations both of space and of my own abilities, is that I want to make
questions of exclusion, artificial claims of universality, and presumptions of
objectivity themselves central to the discussion, so that readers of this survey
will be afforded the theoretical space to raise questions about the structure of
the work itself, its own exclusionary structure and silent (and perhaps silencing)
background assumptions.
Notes on Further Reading

For a general overview of contemporary political philosophy, see Kymlicka 1990,
Hampton 1997, Wolff 2006, and Simmons 2008. For a selection of essays by
contemporary philosophers on issues discussed here, see Christiano and Christman,
eds. 2009. Introductions to moral theory of the sort relevant to the topics discussed
here abound, but some examples are La Follette 2000, Pojman 1999, Rachels
1993 and P. Singer 1993 (though an excellent supplement to these standard treat-
ments is Sterba 2001). For a discussion of utilitarianism specifically, see Sen and
Williams 1982. Since Kantian moral thought figures prominently in the versions
of liberal theory we will focus upon here, further reading into his moral philosophy
might be recommended, for example O’Neill 1989, Hill 1992, and Korsgaard
1996. For alternative approaches to morality, for example developing the “care”
perspective, see Gilligan 1982, Kittay and Meyers 1987, and Noddings 1984.
Rawls’s work will be discussed in detail in upcoming chapters. His two major
works are Rawls 1971 and 1993, though his collected papers are available in
1999a. For overviews of liberalism and its problems, see Kymlicka 1989, Larmore
1996 and Gray 1989 and 1993.
Notes
1 In general, the “people” we refer to here are adults, though of course the interests and
rights of children, and of families within which they are raised, provide a separate
and often neglected topic for social and political philosophy. See Chapter 2 for a brief
discussion of this issue.
20 Introduction
2 Indeed, some theorists have claimed that the defining focus of mainstream political
philosophy is on questions of distributive justice. (See Young 1990: 15–24).
3 Prior to Rawls’s work, ethics and political philosophy in the analytic tradition was
very abstract, focusing, for example, on the structure of moral language rather than
the plausibility of particular positions concerning substantive political issues.
4 This kind of critical hermeneutics takes place in other fields as well, such as what is
generally thought of as cultural studies. For this reason, it should be noted, political
philosophy has become increasingly interdisciplinary, utilizing work from the social and
behavioral sciences as well as the other humanities as part of its overall enterprise.
2 Social Philosophy and the Road
to the Political
During the presidential election in the U.S. in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton
was quoted as saying that the supporters of her opponent, Republican Donald
Trump, included what she called a “basket of deplorables.” This phrase referred
to groups that openly espoused racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic views,
according to their own self-avowals. Implicit in this charge is the claim that a
leader of a party and, subsequently a nation, must disavow association with
people who openly support attitudes and values that are in direct conflict with
the basic principles of a constitutional democracy. That is, even short of breaking
the law (which all would condemn), racist, religious, and other forms of intoler-
ance in society must be resisted, or so it was argued. The question this raises,
among others, is what the critical response should be toward attitudes and prac-
tices that might be legally tolerated but that are otherwise highly problematic
and what our philosophical approach should be to criticizing them.1
***
The title of this book refers to social and political philosophy, but what is the
difference between the two? What specifically distinguishes social philosophy from
ethics and moral philosophy, on the one hand, and political theory, on the other?
Is there a continuum from relatively individualized normative reflection (ethics)
to socially contextualized judgments (social philosophy) to analysis of institutions
of coercive power (political philosophy)? I think there is, but I also think that no
single such category of philosophical activity can be separated from the others.
Ethics is, in the end, continuous with political philosophy since solutions to ethical
questions cannot be fully articulated unless reference is made to the legitimacy of
the background institutions that structure the social settings in which those ques-
tions are raised, for those background factors shape and limit the options open to
us. I will repeatedly mention these connections as we proceed, but the reader
should also always be reflecting on the relation between social and political
practice.
Differentiations among these normative realms, then, are always to some
degree in question. We will nevertheless make them here if only to focus atten-
tion on some questions and controversies that are of pressing importance in the
22 Social Philosophy and the Political
current landscape. In this chapter, then, we will focus on what I take to be para-
digmatically social philosophy, temporarily abstracted from both individual ethi-
cal decision making and political principles attached to state institutions. The
latter, however, will be the focus of most of the rest of the book, although its
dependence on evaluating social practices of the sort we look at here will be a
theme we will revisit.
What Is Social Philosophy?

As used here, “social philosophy” refers to the interpretation and critical appraisal
of practices in social settings that are shaped by widely held values and enforced
by non-coercive norms. This will separate such subject matter, in the first instance
at least, from political philosophy defined as the examination and appraisal of
institutions that enforce rules backed by sanctions and the coercive power of a
state or states. Social practices, however, are patterns of behavior that shape and
affect people’s lives but that are neither prescribed nor proscribed by the force
of law.
In the liberal tradition, the dominant framework to evaluate any activity,
including social practices, utilizes some variation of John Stuart Mill’s “harm
principle.” That principle states that since “the sole end for which mankind are
warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action
of any of their number, is self-protection,” then “the only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (Mill 1859/1975: 10–11).
However, aside from questions of the plausibility of the principle (and leaving
aside the striking reference to “civilized” communities—see Chapter 9), applying
it involves examining the wide range of effects that actions have on others that
cause them disadvantage. We not only need to know which effects reach to the
level of “harm” of the sort Mill refers to, but we would also need to look at the
variety of strategies available to others to respond to those actions. Mill himself
noted that even if a person’s actions do not cause harm, there may well be “good
reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or
entreating him” (Mill [1859]1975: 11). So an analysis of social practices might
have the aim of trying to determine what reactions on others’ parts—other members
of the society independent of the central powers of the state—are called for.
In a different register, Gerald Gaus defines “social morality” as the basis for
“rules that we are required to act upon and provide the basis for authoritative
demands of one person addressed to another” where that authority is addressed
to each other as free and equal moral persons (Gaus 2011: 1). Gaus’s overall
view spans both social philosophy as we discuss it here and political philosophy
as specifically attached to formal rule-bound institutions like the state. Indepen-
dent of the success of that endeavor, we need to come to terms with the kinds
of practices we are talking about and whether the language of “rules” is the best
approach to evaluating them (as opposed, for example, to the language of virtues,
attitudes, or shared values).
Social Philosophy and the Political 23
In order to begin that analysis, though, we need to come to a sensitive under-

standing of what the social and individual meanings are of various activities.
That is, if a practice such as consuming pornography or refusing to live in a
minority neighborhood ought to be the subject of criticism (if not restriction)
we often will need to spend time in coming to understand the cultural and societal
meanings of such behaviors. How others are affected, in other words, will turn
on what such practices mean in a social sense. Determining that involves what
I call critical social hermeneutics. Let us discuss this first.
Critical Social Hermeneutics

Much social commentary and theorizing ends up saying very little about what
we ought to do in terms of policy, law, or institutional rules. Rather, this work
often involves simply uncovering what the authors think are the veiled meanings
and implications of various practices, or, alternatively, what value commitments
underlie or motivate such practices. This research is interpretive rather than
explanatory in that there is often no pretense of showing empirically that a social
activity has this or that effect or is motivated by this or that attitude or value.
Rather, the writer puts forward an understanding of the practice that is meant to
shed light on its meaning and, like a good story, is plausible if it hangs together,
fits roughly with observable facts inherent in the phenomenon, and leads to
insights into our own grasp of the case.
Consider, for example, Thomas Shelby’s analysis of racial consciousness and
politics in We Who Are Dark (Shelby 2005). Shelby addresses the question of
whether a sense of black solidarity can aid in efforts in the context of the con-
temporary U.S. to counter racist social practices and the legacy of oppressive
political and legal structures that victimize blacks and other minorities. He defends
a notion of “emancipatory” black solidarity that is consistent with skepticism of
a biological basis for racial differences. He thereby defends a “conception of
solidarity based strictly on the shared experience of racial oppression and a joint
commitment to resist it” (Shelby 2005, 11–12; cf. also Young 1990a: 4–7).
Now aside from the normative claim that adopting such a sense of solidarity
will in fact serve emancipatory ends, Shelby must engage in “thick” social
interpretation of various dimensions of racism as well as the multiplicity of
experiences of the victims of such attitudes and practices. In addition, he must
engage in detailed analysis of the culture of racism and resistance—the way that
certain practices have the effect of exacerbating the disadvantages of blacks in
the U.S. and the potential for other practices and shared ideas and values will
be useful in combatting those practices.
This part of Shelby’s work is not aimed at establishing basic principles of
social justice—indeed it presupposes both the plausibility of certain fundamental
(liberal) principles and the fact that historical and ongoing racism violates those
principles. What Shelby and similar writers engage in is social analysis aimed
at advancing a view about the dimensions of this form of injustice and finding
the most productive way to resist it.
This kind of critical social interpretation can be found in a variety of litera-

tures, particularly by more activist philosophers who think the role of social
theorizing must move beyond abstract and detached analysis and attend to actual
conflicts and struggles that currently surround us.2 This is what some have called
“immanent critique,” a practice developed in the Frankfurt School of social and
political philosophy that emerged in the mid-twentieth century. This involves
looking at culture and social practices in order to extract dominant attitudes and
values that shape the discourse and activities that mold societies. Although
sociology and other social scientific disciplines will be relied upon in such
research, strict empirical claims about these attitudes and meanings need not be
produced in order to advance productive stories about these dominant ideas and
presuppositions, though of course empirical elements contained in such inter-
pretations can be evaluated on their own terms. In the examples of social phi-
losophy to follow, some degree of this kind of critical hermeneutics will be
essential for the full understanding of the practices and attitudes being
analyzed.
Social Context and the Role of Social Criticism

To further delineate and clarify the practice of social philosophy, we should
make some further methodological distinctions concerning the realms of practical
philosophy. In discussions of various aspects of a society, we can focus on the
basic political and legal institutions that shape that society, asking, for example,
about the legitimacy of those institutions or the validity of the legal and policy
provisions that emerge from them. Or we can focus on the values and practices
of the people living within the laws generated and enforced by those institutions.
And, of course, we can look at the interaction between the two, for example,
whether the informal practices we see in such societies (given our critical inter-
pretation of those practices—see the previous section) are such that the legal
provisions in question will be self-sustaining. For example, in a society where
people’s attitudes toward a marginalized group are clearly denigrating and exclu-
sionary, legal protections of the equality of people and groups in that society
will be ineffective, even if vigorously enforced by a police force.3
Further, even if certain attitudes or social practices might be properly the
subject of debate and criticism, it may well be that legal action against those
phenomena would be too costly to impose, for example because it would violate
other basic rights or give law enforcement personnel inordinate power and dis-
cretion. For instance, people having racist attitudes is a social ill that may well
be the subject of public (and philosophical) criticism, but attempting to eradicate
such attitudes through coercive legal measures may involve unacceptable inva-
sions of personal privacy and give police officers undue discretion over what
counts as a racist attitude. Even in cases where there are ongoing questions about
whether legal prohibitions are called for, we can still engage in a critical discourse
about the practices in question.
So we can separate, for now at least, the question of what the law should be
(and what its legitimacy is founded upon) from the question of what social
attitudes and practices ought to be. This latter question and its corollaries will
be the subject matter of social philosophy as I am using the term here. When
someone says “we live in a sexist society” they may be referring to unfair laws,
but more likely they will be talking about how certain social habits and behaviors
reveal misogynistic attitudes that make women’s lives unacceptably worse than
they should be, whether or not the proper response to such social ills would
directly involve changing that society’s legal and political institutions.
Further, it will be a mistake to simply lump such a critical endeavor into the
category of “ethics” or “moral philosophy,” for these latter phrases refer para-
digmatically to the reflections and actions of individual agents. Social practices,
as I will describe them, involve relatively larger patterns of activity and socially
defined habits (what Pierre Bordieu calls habitus) that cannot be reduced to the
separate actions of individual moral persons.4
Therefore, what follows is a brief discussion of a select group of controversies
pitched at the level of social criticism, leaving open—for now—whether the
authority of state (legal) action should be invoked in responding to the phenomena
in question. These overviews are meant merely to exemplify debates in social
philosophy and hopefully spur further examination of these and related issues.
A Selection of Issues in Social Philosophy

Epistemic Injustice
One way to raise critical questions about the practices of one’s society is to look
critically at the language of the culture and whether such language is capable of
capturing the interests and experiences of those living within it. For example,
language used to describe various groups of people has connotations that, at
certain points, are brought to light, so that those connotations can be examined
and perhaps criticized. When this is done, such language often shifts as a result.
We no longer refer to disabled people as “cripples,” for example, or mentally
challenged individuals as “retarded.” This is because it was brought out, often
by those to whom such terminology purportedly referred, that such terms have
demeaning connotations that we want to avoid.
Moreover, for some there may be no adequate term to capture what they are
experiencing or think they need, leaving them disoriented or silenced as they
attempt to reflect upon and express those needs. For instance, people have been
engaging in homosexual behavior, broadly speaking, throughout human history,
but having linguistic practices that refer to sexual and romantic relationships
among same-sex people that didn’t cast aspersions on such people and/or deny
their existence is of a recent vintage. The “love that dare not speak its name” is
a fanciful phrase, but reflecting on times when it was not permitted to even
mention an act or a social category with which one deeply identifies oneself
shows how distressing and oppressive such societies could be.
Indeed, how and by whom certain social terminology is used will matter for
its acceptability and meaning. Members of certain groups who have been histori-
cally denigrated may claim the very terms used in that denigration and claim as
their own, using them to refer to each other within the group. But non-members
using those same terms cannot rid them of the socially derogatory baggage they
bear; such use by out-group members, then, can remain insulting. The word
“nigger” in American English (and elsewhere) may have this quality. Black
persons might use this term in ways that convey no direct racist connotations,
but white persons using that term virtually always do. And some such social
appropriation of previously derogatory language can become so complete that
the terminology becomes acceptable by everyone. The word “queer,” for example,
was taken to be a directly insulting word referring to homosexuals at one time,
where now it is a perfectly respectable name for some academic programs in
major universities!5
Similarly, one might identify with the suffering and injustice that have been
visited upon the group to which you belong, such as your race or ethnicity. But
in many locales (past and present) that injustice is not publicly acknowledged,
or at least its implications are ignored or suppressed in public discussion. In the
case of racism in the U.S., for example, emanating from but continuing long
after the existence of slavery as an institution, many have argued that an “epis-
temology of ignorance” has dominated public and academic discourse, in that
the legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow era (and the current conditions and
practices that bear their marks) is often skipped over or underplayed (Sullivan
and Tuana 2007).
We can call the general phenomenon being described here, following Miranda
Fricker, as “epistemic injustice,” namely situations where the terms of the domi-
nant discourses of a society may either contain ways of speaking (and hence
accepted modes of knowing) that reflect and contribute to unjust disadvantages
for certain groups. Fricker describes two main types of epistemic injustice. The
first is “testimonial injustice,” where a member of a marginalized group is not
granted the status as a reliable speaker in an exchange, either a formal proceed-
ing or a conversation. When a woman’s opinion is sloughed off as insignificant
or subject to “mansplaining,” she, qua woman in a sexist world, is refused equal
testimonial status in public discourse.
The second type of epistemic exclusion is “hermeneutic injustice.” This is
slightly more complex, in that it involves the semantic terrain of the given public
discourse—what concepts and terminology is available to express one’s interests
or explain one’s experiences. Fricker gives the example of being subject to sexual
advances in professional settings before there was a language of sexual harass-
ment to use to resist such behavior, or even describe what was happening and
why it was problematic. If a woman, say, received unwanted sexual attention in
her workplace, she may have had to endure it as part of the accepted culture,
not knowing how to object to it or raise the issue. This was because there was
no terminology to describe it, and hence no normative framework into which
such an objection would fit (Fricker 2007: Chapter 7).
The examples these theorists give to make the case for epistemic injustice in
such instances are relatively unassailable. However, it should be noted that dur-
ing any moment of social transformation, when the needs and experiences of
“silenced” groups are emerging into a newly developing language that gives
them voice, there are always opponents to that transition who will claim that
complaints about previously unacknowledged injuries are merely idiosyncratic.
Such resistance now seems almost quaint because we are looking at it from the
vantage point of a completed social transition (well, completed in some instances
at least, far from complete in others). From this vantage point, the resistance to
those who called for a richer language to capture the victimization of women in
the workplace, racial minorities as fully recognized equal members of a discursive
community, and so on, is seen as antiquated. But remembering such resistance
raises the more pointed question of how one tells when a call for new terminol-
ogy for a social experience of victimization is actually a valid expression of a
group interest or a personal difficulty being masked as a social complaint. Clearly
not every call to revise language in light of a particular spokesperson’s demand
need be heeded. So what are the criteria for determining this?
One response to this question is that any claims on the part of otherwise
marginalized and disadvantaged groups that their interests are not being expressed
adequately should get presumptive weight in our appraisal of the situation. For
example, when leaders of the black community in the U.S. began suggesting
that various older terms of reference for them, such as “Negro,” should be
abandoned and that terms like “African American” better capture their status as
minority (but equal) citizens, then the proper response is to defer to these claims.
Groups for which there is a clear record of victimization and injustice should
be given deference in claims that public understanding of their histories, experi-
ences, and interests have been (and are being) stifled by dominant terminology
and linguistic practices. This further underscores the point made earlier that
members of oppressed groups can be given social permission to use otherwise
derogatory language to refer to each other that out-group members do not have.
A similar line of questioning can be addressed to the project of exploring epis-
temologies of ignorance. Clearly, the studies of how the privileges of dominant
groups blind them to the histories of injustice that people of color experience are
crucially important both in pointing to the particular subject matters that have been
suppressed by dominant modes of discourse and accepted bodies of “knowledge”
and in theorizing about how power and knowledge interact in the public sphere to
produce and maintain these modes of ignorance and collective amnesia. However,
the cases evinced in such discussion—the victimization of African Americans by
white dominance in places like the U.S., for example—are, to my mind at least,
uncontroversial. Calling the suppression in question “ignorance” implies a truth
being denied, and in these cases there is little to object to that label.
However, the language of “ignorance” is inapt if, in other cases perhaps, it
is not settled whether the narratives and histories being denied are suppressed
“truths” or simply matters of disagreements concerning interpretation and evalu-
ation. We need further guidance about what counts as unjust suppression of
actual social histories and experiences rather than a possibly contentious claim
about how to interpret or understand that history.6
To both questions raised about the project of exposing epistemological injus-
tice, at least one general response can be advanced. That is, inclusion of a
multiplicity of voices in public and academic discussions of the topics in question
is crucial, and in fields (philosophy is a clear case of one!) where people of
color, women, disabled people, and other marginalized groups are woefully
underrepresented, there should be a robust suspicion that dominant modes of
conceptualizing social facts and social problems are truly capturing the experi-
ences and interests of everyone in society as they themselves understand them.
This question of contentious social interpretations reflecting unjust power
arrangements in a society will re-emerge in the following section, where we
consider various arguments concerning the ubiquity of pornography in society
and the ethical and political questions this raises.
Pornography
The question of whether graphic representations of sexual activity ought to be
regulated, controlled, or suppressed altogether is a seemingly ageless one. For
most of the history of such a question, the controversy has been whether states
should be able to (legally) suppress obscene or indecent material simply because
of its obscenity or indecency. The central question always was, then, how to
define or describe precisely the nature of the material that was to be banned, or
what counted as “obscene.”7 In recent decades, however, this issue has taken a
new shape as feminists have left aside the question of obscenity and argued that
pornography harms and/or offends women. The claim has been that the produc-
tion, dissemination, and use of pornographic material is a significant part of the
patriarchal culture we live in and hence contributes to the victimization of women.
Debates surrounding these claims have been fraught and complex, as other
self-described feminists have claimed that critics of pornography were simply
engaging in overly moralistic reasoning and that many of the images, films, and
so on that were the subject of initial feminist critique can and were used by
women in empowering ways, or at least in ways that should not be impeded by
state or social action.8
This controversy has largely been about whether sexually explicit material
can be made the subject of legal action or control because of the ways that
people, women in particular, are harmed or offended by it. However, as I will
suggest, debates about the status of pornography need not extend only to ques-
tions of what should be done in the legal arena. Before discussing those issues,
though, some distinctions should first be made to avoid much of the crosstalk
that has often plagued debates of this sort.
First, there is much discussion of what is meant by “pornography.” But in
asking what “pornography” refers to, we should separate two issues, namely the
classification question—what counts as pornography—and what we could call
the location question—what aspect of the broad and complex world we could
call “porn culture” is being referred to when “pornography” (however it is

defined) is being attacked or defended. For often discussions proceed as if the
physical material (or digital material) is being referred to, but as the conversation
proceeds, it becomes clear that it is the use or the production of that material
that is at issue. These various foci should be separated.
Therefore, we should distinguish the following foci or “locations” that form
part of the phenomenon we call pornography: The first is the production of the
material, whether it be films, photographs, digital images and movies, prose,
recorded sound, or other representations.9 This refers to the process by which
images or other kinds of representations are made. Questions about how people—
women in particular—are treated in these processes is one subject of debate and
criticism.10
Secondly, at the other end of the process, is the “consumption” of pornography
and the subsequent effects of that consumption, both on the user and on other
people. Many discussions of the harms associated with pornography are aimed
at these effects, where it is debated whether social scientific studies or personal
stories amount to convincing evidence about the harmful social effects of por-
nography (see, e.g., Linz and Malamuth 1993).
Finally, there are the representations themselves, what they express, mean, or
“do.” Debates about the offensiveness of pornography can be aimed here, where
it may be claimed that even if no one is exploited or harmed in the production
of it, and no measurable harm is registered after it is used, the representations
in pornography themselves can be said to be insulting, degrading, and so on.
So when “pornography” is discussed, it should be clarified where in this list
the critique is directed. The question that is most often raised in this context is
whether pornography should be regulated or censored because of some unac-
ceptable harm or offense taking place in either its production, use, or expressive
content. To adjudicate that question, then, two related issues must be hammered
out: what exactly does “pornography” refer to, meaning what definition should
we give to the term referring to the phenomena allegedly to be banned or regu-
lated? Second, what are the precise grounds upon which this action is justified?
If it is harm (to women), we must look at the evidence for such harm and the
location of it (in production, use, effects, etc.). If it is offensiveness, the question
becomes both whether the material in question is offensive and, even if it is,
whether we should ban (merely) offensive material at all. If it has to do with
inequality and discrimination, we need to know where and how this is meant to
occur.
Typically, discussions of pornography direct our attention to possible legal
actions regulating its production or use. There are various statutes and legal
regulations that attempt to control explicit material that is regarded as obscene.
Such legal instruments raise questions about whether the basic rights to privacy
and speech apply and are perhaps violated by them. If so, it is argued (in the
U.S. at least) that such rights trump arguments for offensiveness of the material.11
Such regulations are generally passed at the state and local levels, since what
counts as obscene and/or offensive varies from community to community (and
U.S. law specifically refers to “community standards” in defining obscenity and

so carving out the area that might be subject to censorship or regulation). How-
ever, there are now seemingly limitless amounts of pornography on the internet,
and it is unclear how such material can be tied to any particular community.12
One of the most sophisticated and controversial attempts to pass a law regard-
ing pornography was drafted by Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin.
This law, however, was not a criminal injunction. Rather it was a provision of
civil law, where victims (as defined by the statute) could sue producers of por-
nography if they could show that they were harmed in a particular way. In the
ordinance, pornography is defined, in part, as “the graphic sexually explicit
subordination of women” that also includes any one of a list of modes in which
women are presented in degrading ways (e.g., “as tied up, cut up, mutilated,
bruised, or physically hurt”). Also, a civil lawsuit can be brought against the
production, distribution, or use of pornography, so defined, only if it can also
be shown that specific harms have resulted from the production, etc. of pornog-
raphy, harms such as being coerced into pornography, being assaulted due to
pornography’s production or use, and so on. Most importantly, this approach
views the harms of pornography as involving sex discrimination (against women
and other victims) by eroticizing the unequal and most often violently harmful
treatment of women that is in evidence in the wider male dominated society (see
Watson 2010).
Versions of the ordinance were introduced in two localities, but it was sub-
sequently ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated constitutionally
protected freedom of expression.13 Many feminists argue, however, that pornog-
raphy is not (or not merely) speech. These arguments are along (at least) two
separate lines. The first is that the production and use of pornography involves
specific harms such as rape, exploitation, assault, and so on and so includes
actions other than expression which can form the basis of legal action. MacKin-
non, for example, opens the pages of her book on the subject, Only Words, with
detailed descriptions of the ways in which women are beaten, raped, degraded,
and humiliated in the production of pornography, and many women have been
coerced, beaten, raped, and otherwise harmed by men who are users of
pornography.
This approach to legally regulating pornography has garnered much debate,
which we won’t survey here, though a brief reply might be noted: Insofar as
these harms to women have occurred, either in the production or as a result of
the use of pornography, why do we need further legal instruments to prohibit
them? Clearly the terrible ways in which the women MacKinnon describes are
victimized are unjust and should be prosecuted or be the subject of a civil action,
but it is unclear why it matters that these actions involve any particular material
like pornography. If a man coerces, beats, etc. a woman, then we have a crime
(or an actionable tort), whether or not this happened in the making of, or after
the use of, pornography. In the next section, I will suggest a reply to this point,
one which I am in great sympathy, but it will not lead back to an argument for
civil ordinances like this one.
Moreover, attempting to ground a right to legal action against the pornography

industry puts great pressure on the specification of what pornography is exactly.
What does it mean for a graphic representation of sex to “subordinate” women?
It is clear that some sexually explicit material represents the subordination of
women in a number of ways, but saying there are some (many) clear cases does
not make it easier to settle the issue in debatable ones. Again, to say that overt
harm occurs because of (some) pornography is uncontroversial, and legal and
other social action to combat this phenomenon is clearly justified, but it is quite
difficult to then determine what it is about representations of sex in general that
count as subordination independent of such harms.14
A second strategy for responding to the claim that pornography is a kind
of speech and so ought to be immune from legal restriction is the view devel-
oped by Rae Langton and others that graphic depictions of sex that degrades
women do not (or not simply) express an idea. Rather they enact a social
action. Like saying “I do” at a wedding, some expressions do not function as
a mode of relaying a proposition or idea, but rather they make something
happen in the social world in which they function (what is called their “illo-
cutionary” force). Given the background practices of sexism, misogyny, and
patriarchy where women are routinely victimized in tangible ways, pornog-
raphy is a kind of performative act—it legitimates and authorizes the degrada-
tion and “silencing” of women—not as an expression of a thought or idea but
as a performative act.15
This view, however, can be countered by observing that while pornography
is pervasive in many cultures like the U.S., and it clearly reflects and interacts
with the sexism of these cultures where women are pervasively regarded merely
as objects of sexual desire and subject to exploitation and abuse, it is not part
of any authorizing practice that confers legitimacy to the illocutionary force of
depictions of sex. For a performative utterance to authorize a state of affairs,
like a judge saying of a defendant that he or she has been found guilty, there
must be a well-established normative order that recognizes those utterances to
have that normative effect. Langton claims that pornography effectively makes
it the case that women’s voices are not to be taken seriously (in refusing sex,
for example), by authorizing that attitude, not as a contingent after-effect of
using porn, what would be referred to as its “perlocutionary force,” but as a
performative gesture in an established (sexist) normative order.
But as Nancy Bauer has argued, pornography lacks the unique normative
status in an authorizing order that observers and participants would understand
as such, as is the case in marriage ceremonies and courtrooms (Bauer 2015:
75–86). That is to say, there is no well-recognized set of generally accepted rules
that establish pornography as conferring a change in status on men and women
in society. Now we should reiterate that producing and viewing representations
of women that involve sexual degradation are clearly part of a patriarchal culture
in which men routinely ignore and silence women’s voices, and pornography
plays a significant role in the continuation of those practices, but it is tendentious
at best to say that pornography specifically and uniquely legitimizes and
authorizes these practices. More to the point, the claim that such authorization
grounds legal prohibitions becomes even more tendentious.
This last claim is crucial, and I will take it as a pivot point to motivate an
alternative approach to the standard feminist critique of pornography. Namely,
to understand various modes of criticism of the production processes, expressive
content and effects of pornography not as part of a legal argument for criminal
or civil action, but rather as relevant to a critique of a social practice, a critique
that is meant to contribute to social discourse, protest, and public criticism about
the attitudes and practices of some, independent of the question of whether
coercive legal measures are justified to combat those attitudes and practices. Let
me end this section with a sketch of this approach.16
Feminist Anti-Pornography as Social Critique

Consider first the task of defining pornography. If we follow Dworkin and
MacKinnon and define it as the (graphic sexually explicit) subordination of
women, the case for critique is already made insofar as the subordination of
women is clearly to be decried. But, as I mentioned, debates about pornography
will be about whether what most people call pornography actually does subor-
dinate women, especially given that some women use pornography and many
are on record claiming it not only fails to subordinate women but can empower
them (see Watson 2010). Some feminist critics of pornography then reply that
this is not pornography, which subordinates women by definition, but erotica.
But this disagreement is so trenchant because the aim of one side of it, in the
end, is the regulation or prohibition of pornography or making it subject to civil
action. So what the definition picks out is crucial. But as the subject of social
criticism rather than legal suppression, definitions can be looser, since claims
about the problematic nature of pornography need not then be made in categori-
cal terms.
For these reasons, I would define pornography as graphic representations of
explicit sexual activity produced and used, typically, for sexual gratification.
Now I am aware that much material is not intended to be used for sexual pleasure
but is so used, and that many things intended to be sexually stimulating are not
(some pornography is boring). But since the claims to be made about the prob-
lems of a culture in which pornography is rampant are not made in categorical
terms, this looseness is tolerable.
Secondly, we must acknowledge the horrible crimes against (for the most
part) women in the production of much pornography, as laid out, for example,
in MacKinnon’s Only Words:
[Viewed against the backdrop of thousands of years of sexual rape and

torture of women] the camera is invented and pictures are made of you
while these things are being done. You hear the camera clicking or whirring
as you are being hurt, keeping time to the rhythm of your pain. You always
know that the pictures are out there somewhere, sold or traded or shown
around or just kept in a drawer. In them, what was done to you is immor-
tal. … This is unbearable.
(MacKinnon 1993: 3–4)
The myriad ways in which women and girls are abused in the making of por-
nography (or by men inspired by pornography) should be the subject of loud
and constant social criticism and legal action. What such a critique does not say,
however, is that pornography as such involves such abuses. This is in order to
avoid distracting debates about whether pornography must or always involves
or leads to abuse. The fact that it often does is enough for the criticism I’m
sketching to be supported.
For these reasons, people who use pornography are involved in morally reckless
behavior, for it is often impossible to tell whether the women involved in the produc-
tion of the material were not exploited, coerced, or abused. This is virtually impossible
to tell because the evidence of abuse, when it occurs, is so easy to cover up.17 That
is, we know that the pornography industry worldwide involves much violence and
exploitation, and whether or not we can point to examples of cases (even many
cases) that show no evidence of such harms, there is still countless numbers of cases
where harm is undeniable. Using pornography contributes to an industry and culture
that at least in huge numbers of cases involves harm, and it is unclear in any given
instance whether what one is looking at belongs in that category or not.
This way of formulating the critique is aimed at production. However, we
can cast a wider net to look at the expressive features of the material itself, and
approaches such as Langton’s concerning the illocutionary force of pornography
can also be recast as a form of social criticism rather than as grounds for legal
control. To do so in a way that avoids the response quoted earlier from Bauer,
we must emphasize how pornography is part of a practice, an element of a
patriarchal culture in which images of women valued only because of their sexual
attractiveness to men are ubiquitous. Moreover, patterns of discrimination and
violence against women in every culture are undeniable. There is debate perhaps
about its extent but not about its presence and, I assume, about the injustice of
such practices. Clearly the pervasiveness of pornography is part of such a culture,
and the expressive meaning of much pornographic material can be interpreted
as authorizing such treatment.
This authorization is not here understood as formal legitimation, as is the
case of legal pronouncements backed by explicit rules, nor is it part of an argu-
ment for legal suppression of the material in question. This is because the claim
that some or most pornography has this character is contested. The critique that
it is part of a patriarchal culture is a proposal for public critical discussion, a
reminder to those who produce and use pornography that they are participating
in a practice that in many of its manifestations directly contributes to the vic-
timization of women. Examples can be given and interpretive claims advanced
about some pornography’s expression of these patriarchal attitudes. Claims of
this sort need not be mired in endless debates about whether all pornography,
by its nature, involves subordination.
So the critique of (some) pornography sketched here is a part of social phi-

losophy as I understand it. That is, it is part of public critical discourse aimed
at aspects of one’s culture. As such, it has a character different from the legal
(and political) arguments that pepper the literature, for such arguments bear the
burden of showing that the coercive legal response being supported can be defined
precisely enough to be legitimate. The present argument does not bear that
burden.18
Finally, the critical claims being outlined here do not rest on the question of
whether pornography is a kind of speech and hence deserving of special protec-
tions reserved for speech, writing or expression. Pornography is a graphic rep-
resentation but it is also part of a practice, one that includes the mode in which
it is produced and the effects it has on social attitudes and cultural forms.
Whether or not pornography is a kind of expression with propositional content
or illocutionary force, the claims in question here are about whether such expres-
sion ought to be continued, not whether people have a (legal or even moral)
right to engage in it. Such a right can be granted,19 but the voices decrying the
offensiveness of much pornography and the abuses often involved with it have
as their object the practices in question, whether within people’s rights or not.
Not everything a person has a right to do in the end ought to be done. The
critique outlined here urges that people stop or severally reorganize their way
of doing it.
In this section, I attempted to give a very brief overview of some of the
debates people have engaged in concerning sexually explicit material, and I have
added a sketch of an argument for an alternative approach to this controversy
that sees it as properly in the purview of social critique. I advance such an argu-
ment tentatively (especially writing as a male) and do so to spur further discus-
sion and perhaps clarify some points. Further discussion is clearly needed, and
such discussion must (principally) involve those directly implicated in the harms
and offensiveness in the practices discussed.
Marriage, Gender, and the Family

It is rather astounding how rapidly the dominant social attitudes about gay and
lesbian relationships and marriage have changed, especially in (so-called) Western
countries. In the U.S., for example, in 2014 the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell
v. Hodges that legal marriage between two persons of the same sex must be
allowed in all states. This came just 20 years after the government passed a law
stating that only marriage between a man and a woman was legal.20 More pro-
foundly, this relatively rapid change came after literally millennia of condemna-
tion and prohibition of homosexuality. In England, male homosexual acts were
declared explicitly illegal in 1583 (though clearly not tolerated before that) and
made legal only in 1967. Various “sodomy laws” targeting homosexual acts were
declared unconstitutional in the U.S. only in 2003, reversing an earlier ruling
upholding such laws.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Soak the gelatine in the milk for two hours. Beat up the eggs till
very light. Add the sugar and beat again. Bring the milk and gelatine
to the boil. Pour over the eggs and sugar. Strain. Put on the fire in a
double boiler and stir till thick; but do not allow it to boil. Add the
vanilla and pour into a wet mould.
*Strawberry Sponge
1 quart strawberries
Powdered sugar
4 whites of eggs
¹⁄₂ pint boiling water
1 oz. isinglass
Mash the strawberries with sufficient sugar to sweeten and set
them aside for about an hour. Boil the water and two ounces of sugar
for twenty minutes. Add the gelatine which has been soaked for an
hour in a little cold water. Remove from the fire and strain. Put the
strawberries through a fine sieve. Add the syrup gradually, beating
hard for five minutes. Beat the whites to a stiff froth. Add them to the
strawberries and beat till the mixture begins to set. Put into a wet
mould. Serve with whipped cream.
*King’s Soufflé
¹⁄₂ lb. powdered sugar

3 small lemons
3 eggs
¹⁄₂ pint whipped cream
³⁄₄ oz. gelatine
¹⁄₂ gill water
Beat the yolks of the eggs. Add to them the sugar, the juice of
three lemons, and grated rind of two. Pour into a double-boiler, and
whisk continually until the mixture thickens. Do not let it boil. Strain
and set aside to cool. Melt the gelatine in the water, and add it to the
cold egg mixture. Add the cream and the whites whipped to a stiff
froth. Whip lightly together, and when beginning to set, pour into a
mould. Garnish with crystallised violets or rose-leaves.
Pastry
PAGE
Plain Pastry—I. 125
” ” II. 125
” ” (Short) 125
Puff Pastry 126
Rich Crust 126
Short Crust for Tartlets 127
Biscuit Paste for Tartlets 127
General Directions
In making pastry, the colder the hands of the maker, the water and
the room, the better. A marble slab is the best thing on which to
make it: otherwise a hard board which is kept for pastry only should
be used.
Use iced water for mixing, when possible. Pastry will be flakier if
set on ice before it is finally rolled out for use. The flour used should
be very dry and should be sifted with a little salt. Use the best flour
only and fresh butter, or half butter, half lard.
Use as little water as possible.
Never knead pastry.
Use the hands as little as possible. Mix with a knife unless
otherwise specified.
Bake in a moderate or quick oven.
Baking powder, in the proportion of one tea-spoon to each quart of
flour, may be added when eggs are not used. The baking powder
should be sifted twice with the flour before mixing.
It is better to bake pastry separately from the fruit when possible. It
will thus be much crisper. To do this fill the dish which is to be used
with stiff crumpled paper, over which a smooth and well-buttered
piece should be laid. Cover with the pastry and bake. Remove the
pastry and fill the dish with well-sweetened stewed fruit. Moisten the
edges of the dish with white of egg and replace the crust.
In making open tarts and tartlets, when the tin is lined with pastry it
can be filled with rice and baked. This is in order to keep the crust
crisp. The rice must be taken out and the fruit or jam put in its place
just before serving.
Plain Pastry—I
12 ozs. flour
3 ozs. butter
3 ozs. lard
Salt
Cut up the lard and butter, very finely, in the flour. With a knife, mix
with a little water. Roll and fold up three or four times.
Plain Pastry—II
1 lb. flour
¹⁄₂ lb. butter
Cold water
Rub the butter into the flour. Add cold water gradually to make a
stiff paste, mixing with a knife. Roll out quickly.
*Plain Pastry Crust—III

(For Tarts)
4 ozs. butter
2 ozs. lard
10 ozs. flour
Beat the butter to a cream. Rub butter and lard very carefully into
the flour, adding a little salt. Mix with as little water as possible.
*Puff Pastry
1 lb. fresh butter
1 lb. dry sifted flour
Salt
Work the flour well with a little water into a still dough. Flour the
pastry board slightly. Roll out the dough until one inch thick. Flatten
the butter and put in the centre of the dough. Fold the edges up over
the butter and roll out very lightly five times, always rolling outwards,
and using as little flour as possible on the board. The butter must on
no account be allowed to work through the paste. Set aside in a cold
place, or on ice, for at least an hour. When making tarts, &c., cut off
a piece at a time, instead of using the whole quantity, and roll out
very lightly. Bake in a rather hot oven. This is a simple and excellent
receipt.
*Rich Crust—IV
10 ozs. flour
8 ozs. butter
Juice of a lemon
Rub two ounces of the butter into the flour. Mix with the lemon
juice and a little water. Divide the rest of the butter into three parts.
Roll out the paste half an inch thick. Cut one lot of butter into small
pieces and dab them on the paste. Fold it over three times
lengthwise, and then three times the other way. Roll out again.
Repeat the process twice, when the butter will be used up.
This receipt may be made with baking powder (see General
Directions).
*Short Crust—V
(For Tartlets)
1 lb. flour
³⁄₄ lb. butter
2 table-spoons powdered sugar
Yolks of 3 eggs
Water
Salt
Rub the butter into the flour and sugar. Beat the yolks with a little
water. Stir into the flour with a knife until smooth.
Biscuit Paste—VI
(For Open Tarts and Tartlets)
1 lb. flour
¹⁄₄ lb. sugar
6 yolks
Milk
Sift the flour and sugar together. Stir in the eggs with a knife. Make
into a stiff paste with some milk (about 1 gill).
Open Tarts and Tartlets
PAGE
Almond Tartlets—I. 129
” ” II. 129
Chocolate Cream Tartlets 130
Cream Tartlets 130
Cream and Fruit Tartlets 131
Fruit Tartlets 132
Lemon Cheesecakes 132
Mincemeat 133
Orange Tartlets 133
Strawberry Tartlets 134
Almond Tartlets—I
¹⁄₄ lb. sweet almonds

5 ozs. powdered sugar
10 drops vanilla
6 whites of eggs
A few drops of lemon juice
Blanch and pound the almonds with the lemon juice. Add the
sugar. Whip the whites to a stiff froth. Stir in the almonds, sugar and
vanilla. Bake in a moderate oven in patty pans lined with puff pastry.
Almond Tartlets—II
5 ozs. potato flour
8 yolks
3 whites
2¹⁄₂ ozs. butter
2 lemons
2¹⁄₂ ozs. sweet almonds
¹⁄₄ oz. bitter almonds
Blanch and pound the almonds. Melt the butter. Grate the rind of
the lemons. Beat the yolks. Mix all thoroughly together except the
whites. Beat them to a froth, and stir them in last.
Line two round tins with short crust (see p. 127). Spread it with
apricot jam, and pour the almond mixture over it. Bake in a slow
oven.
Chocolate Cream Tartlets

1 pint milk
1¹⁄₂ ozs. grated chocolate
1¹⁄₂ ozs. flour
¹⁄₄ lb. powdered sugar
1 oz. butter
4 eggs
Boil the chocolate and milk together. Stir in the flour, mixed smooth
in a little cold milk. Stir until it thickens. Strain. Pour over the well
beaten yolks. Add the sugar and butter. Stir over the fire until just
below boiling point.
Line small tins with a short crust. Fill with the cream and bake.
Make a meringue of two whites and two table-spoons of powdered
sugar (see p. 4). Put in the oven to brown slightly.
Cream Tartlets
1 pint cream
¹⁄₂ pint milk
Peel of one lemon
8 yolks
Put the cream and milk into a sauce-pan. When they boil, add the
sugar, the very finely-pared lemon peel and a little salt. Stir for a few
moments. Pour the cream over the well beaten yolks. Set back on
the fire. When thick, strain into a basin. Set aside in a cool place till
wanted. Line some small tins with puff paste. Fill with uncooked rice.
Bake. Take out the rice and fill with custard. Sprinkle with lemon
sugar (see p. 164).
Cream and Fruit Tartlets

For cream:—
1 tea-cup cream or milk
2 whites of eggs
1 table-spoon powdered sugar
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon cornflour
Line a dish with short crust. Fill it closely with raspberries,
strawberries, cherries or other fruit and sufficient sugar. Cover with
crust, but do not press it down round the edges. When baked, lift off
the upper crust and fill with cream.
Cream.—Scald the milk or cream. Add the whites beaten to a stiff
froth, the sugar and the cornflour mixed smooth with a little cold milk.
Boil three minutes, stirring continually. Set aside until quite cold.
Fruit Tartlets
Stew the fruit until tender, taking care to keep it whole, in plenty of
water and sugar. Take out the fruit gently with a skimmer when done.
Add a few drops of lemon juice to the syrup. Boil it until reduced to a
thick syrup. Line several small tins with a short crust (No. IV. or V.).
Fill with uncooked rice and bake. Take out the rice. Arrange the fruit
in them and pour the syrup over.
Lemon Cheesecakes
¹⁄₄ lb. butter

1 lb. loaf sugar
6 eggs
3 lemons
Melt the sugar in the lemon juice. Add the butter, eggs (taking out
the whites of two) and the grated rind of two lemons. Stir until thick
and of the consistency of honey. A few pounded almonds may be
added.
Line small tins with puff or short pastry, fill with the mixture and
bake.
Mincemeat
2 lbs. suet
3 lbs. raisins
2 lbs. sultanas
2 lbs. currants
1 lb. mixed candied peel
2 lbs. moist sugar
1 dozen sour apples
4 lemons, grated peel and juice
2 tea-spoons mixed spice
2 ” ground ginger
¹⁄₄ lb. pounded sweet almonds
2 grated nutmegs
¹⁄₂ pint brandy
¹⁄₂ pint sherry
Mix the sugar, spices and very finely-chopped suet. Chop the fruit,
and peel as fine as possible. Mix all well together, adding the brandy
and wine last. It is best made several weeks before using.
Orange Tartlets
7 oranges
¹⁄₂ pint syrup
1 lemon
Puff or short paste
Peel six oranges. Scrape off all the white skin with a sharp knife.
Divide into sections, removing all the rest of the white and seeds.
Drop them very carefully into boiling syrup (see p. 151) and let them
simmer three minutes. Take the pieces out gently, and set them on a
sieve to drain over a basin.
To the syrup add the juice of an orange and lemon and the juice
that drains from the cooked oranges. Reduce it by boiling till very
thick.
Line some patty pans with short or puff paste. Fill them with
uncooked rice and bake quickly. Remove the rice, arrange the
oranges on the pastry and pour the syrup over them just before
serving.
Strawberry Tartlets
1 lb. loaf sugar
1 gill water
1 wine-glass brandy or sherry
Strawberries
Make a syrup of the sugar and water. Add the brandy or sherry.
Reduce until thick. Pour this syrup over a number of fine
strawberries.
Line some small tins with short crust (No. 125). Fill them with
uncooked rice and bake in a quick oven.
Turn out the rice and fill with the strawberries and syrup. Serve
hot.
American Pies
PAGE
Apple Pie 137
Cocoanut Pie 137
Custard Pie 138
Lemon Pie—I. 138
” ” II. 139
Mincemeat 140
Mock Mincemeat 141
Pine-Apple Pie 141
General Directions
The following American receipts are all good. Care, however, must
be taken in baking that there is a good bottom heat, or the under
crust will be sodden.
The pies should be made in shallow tins about 8 to 9 inches in
diameter. Puff paste may be used; but No. II. pastry (see p. 125) is
very satisfactory. It should be rolled very thin.
Where a covering of pastry is used, it should be slit across the
centre in three places, about two inches long, to allow the steam to
escape.
Apple Pie
1 lb. sour apples
7 ozs. brown sugar
Roll out pie crust No. II. very thin. Line a tin with it. Pare and core
the apples and cut them in thin sections. Arrange them symmetrically
on the undercrust. Add the sugar. Cover with a thin overcrust,
moistening it with water at the edges and pressing down. Make three
slits about two inches long in the centre of the crust to allow the
steam to escape. Bake in a moderate oven.
Wellington apples should be used, if possible.
Cocoanut Pie
¹⁄₂ lb. grated cocoanut

³⁄₄ lb. powdered sugar
6 ozs. butter
5 whites of eggs
2 table-spoons rose water
1 gill white wine
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat for fifteen minutes with the
rosewater and wine. Stir in the cocoanut and then the whites, beaten
to a stiff froth, lightly and quickly. Pour into a tin lined with No. II.
pastry or puff pastry. Serve cold, sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Custard Pie
3 eggs
1 table-spoon sifted flour
3 table-spoons powdered sugar
1 tea-spoon vanilla
1 pint scalded milk
Beat the yolks till light and creamy. Sift the sugar and flour
together. Add it to the yolks. Add a little salt and the vanilla. Beat the
whites to a stiff froth. Whip them in. Add the cold scalded milk
gradually. Put into a tin lined with puff pastry. Bake thirty minutes.
Lemon Pie—I
2 lemons
3 eggs
2 table-spoons flour
1 pint water
1 oz. butter
Grate the rind of the lemons. Pare off with a sharp knife all the
white skin. Cut the lemons into very small pieces, removing all skin
and pips. Put them in an enamelled saucepan. Add the sugar, flour
and two-thirds of the grated rind and the water. When hot, stir in the
beaten eggs. Remove from the fire when just below boiling point. Stir
in the butter. When cold, pour into a tin lined with thin pastry. Cover
with pastry and bake.
Lemon Pie—II
2 lemons
1¹⁄₂ cups powdered sugar
1 table-spoon corn-flour
3 eggs
2 cups of water
Butter size of a walnut
Mix the sugar, flour and grated rind of the lemons thoroughly. Beat
the yolks till light and creamy. Add to the sugar and beat well. Stir in
the water. Set on the fire in a double boiler. Stir continually. When
hot, add the butter. Stir till thick but do not allow it to boil. When cool
pour it into a rather deep tin lined with No. II. pastry or puff pastry,
and bake. Whip the whites to a froth, adding gradually three table-
spoons powdered sugar. Spread on the pie when cold. Put in the
oven to brown a little. Serve cold.
Mincemeat
³⁄₄ lb. meat
1 lb. suet
2 lbs. raisins
1 lb. currants
4¹⁄₂ lbs. chopped apples
1 lb. golden syrup
2¹⁄₂ lbs. brown sugar
¹⁄₂ lb. mixed peel
¹⁄₂ table-spoon salt
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon white pepper
1 nutmeg, grated
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon ground cloves
1 tea-spoon ground cinnamon
1 bottle sherry
¹⁄₂ pint brandy
Use lean beef. Chop very fine and remove all gristle and fat. Mix
all well together, adding the wine and brandy last.
Bake as directed for apple pie or in small covered tarts, using No.
II. pastry.
Add a little lemon-juice to the mincemeat each time it is used.
Mock Mincemeat
6 toast biscuits
¹⁄₂ pint molasses or syrup
¹⁄₂ pint brown sugar
¹⁄₂ pint cider vinegar
³⁄₄ pint melted butter
¹⁄₂ pint chopped raisins
¹⁄₂ pint currants
2 well beaten eggs
1 dessert-spoon allspice
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon grated nutmeg
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon cloves
1 tea-spoon salt
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon black pepper
1 gill brandy
Crush the biscuits. Mix all well together, adding the brandy last of
all.
Pine-Apple Pie
¹⁄₂ lb. grated pine-apple

¹⁄₂ lb. powdered sugar
¹⁄₄ lb. butter
1 gill thick cream
3 eggs
Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beaten yolks,
beating all till very light. Whip the cream. Add it to the grated pine-
apple. Beat the whites to a stiff froth. Stir them lightly in. Mix
altogether. Bake with an undercrust of puff pastry or a short crust.
Ices
General Directions
If a machine is used (and the best should be obtained) it will take
about half an hour to freeze a cream or water ice. The cylinder
should be set in the pail filled with finely crushed ice and rock salt, in
the proportion of one part of salt to three or four of ice. To break the
ice, wrap carefully in a flannel and pound it with a hammer or flat iron
until it is broken into very small pieces. Pack it solidly round the
cylinder in layers of about three inches, divided by layers of salt. As it
is most important that there should be sufficient salt, it is best to
measure both ice and salt accurately with a saucer. The cylinder
should be turned slowly for the first ten minutes, then quickly. When
the mixture is frozen take out the metal beater, scrape the ice from
the sides of the cylinder, beat it well and pack it firmly down. Put on
the cover, fix the cylinder down into the pail, and cover with a piece
of old felt or carpeting which has been wetted with salt and water.
Leave until it is required.
Water should not be drawn off from the pail until there is so much
that the cylinder begins to float. When it does, draw off the water and
add more salt and ice.
If the ice is to be put into a mould, beat it well and pack firmly into
the mould. Cover closely and pack in ice.
Care must be taken in removing the cover of a cylinder or mould
that none of the salt mixture falls into the ice.
Ices can easily be made without a machine. The cylinder is
replaced by a long round biscuit or coffee tin, about four inches in
diameter. Put the tin in a pail. Pack it round with ice and salt as
above. Pour the mixture which is to be frozen into the tin and beat it
hard for ten minutes. Put on the lid firmly. Cover it with ice and then
cover the whole thing with a thick blanket or piece of carpet. Leave it
for an hour. Remove the ice on lid of the tin, wipe it and take it off.
Scrape off the frozen mixture at the sides and beat very hard again
for ten minutes. Replace the cover, ice, salt and blanket, and leave
for five or six hours, only looking occasionally to see if the water
must be drawn off and more ice and salt added. This, although a
lengthy process, is very simple and inexpensive and most
successful.
For beating, a long wooden spatula, thin at the end and about the
size of a carving knife, should be used.
It is essential that rock salt and not common salt be used. Snow
can be used instead of ice, but is not quite so good.
To take out ice, dip the cylinder quickly in hot water and shake it
gently.
Scald the tins in which ices are made directly they are emptied,
and dry in the oven.
If cream ices are to be put in moulds it will be found more
satisfactory to add to them a little dissolved gelatine in the proportion
of ¹⁄₂ oz. of gelatine to two quarts of cream.
Cream ices are excellent served with a hot chocolate, fruit, or wine
sauce. The sauce should be served separately.
Cream Ices
PAGE
Cream Ice—I. 146
” ” II. 146
Brown Bread Cream Ice 147
Caramel Cream Ice 147
Chestnut Cream Ice 148
Coffee Cream Ice 148
Fruit Cream Ice 148
Strawberry Cream Ice 149
Tutti Frutti 149
*Cream Ice—I
1 quart cream
1 cup powdered sugar
1 table-spoon vanilla
Scald the cream. Add the sugar. When it is melted set aside to
cool. Flavour when cold. Freeze.
The whites of three eggs beaten to a foam, but not stiff, may be
added to the cream just before it is put into the freezer.
Cream Ice—II
(Frozen Custard)

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Social and Political Philosophy A

Contemporary Introduction 2nd Edition

Philosophy of Social Science A Contemporary

Philosophy of Social Science A Contemporary

Philosophy of Mind A Contemporary Introduction 4th

An Introduction to Political Philosophy 2nd Edition

Hegel and Contemporary Practical Philosophy Beyond

Philosophy of Science A Contemporary Introduction 4th

Public Reason In Political Philosophy: Classic Sources

Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Social

This accessible book is invaluable to anyone coming to social and political

John Christman is Professor of Philosophy, Political Science, and Women’s Studies

Recently Published Volumes

Philosophy of Religion Philosophy of Mind

For a full list of published Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy, please visit

Preface and Acknowledgments viii

PART I BASIC ISSUES WITHIN THE LIBERAL PARADIGM 43

PART II CRITIQUE OF THE LIBERAL PARADIGM: CHALLENGES

Liberalism, Freedom, and Culture 179

Epilogue: The Hope of Liberalism 253

Preface to the Second Edition

misconceived without a complementary discussion of the social practices, habits,

to be justified, one that reflected the individualism of traditional enlightenment

The Liberal Democratic Paradigm

that argumentation can somehow be avoided—indeed arguments are ubiquitous

Preliminaries II: Moral Theory and Political Philosophy

But “utility”—the good that is to be maximized according to the theory—is

Structure of the Book

pluralistic and multi-cultural citizenry in order to achieve stability and peace in

Notes on Further Reading

What Is Social Philosophy?

In order to begin that analysis, though, we need to come to a sensitive under-

Critical Social Hermeneutics

This kind of critical social interpretation can be found in a variety of litera-

Social Context and the Role of Social Criticism

A Selection of Issues in Social Philosophy

call “porn culture” is being referred to when “pornography” (however it is

U.S. law specifically refers to “community standards” in defining obscenity and

Moreover, attempting to ground a right to legal action against the pornography

Feminist Anti-Pornography as Social Critique

[Viewed against the backdrop of thousands of years of sexual rape and

So the critique of (some) pornography sketched here is a part of social phi-

Marriage, Gender, and the Family

¹⁄₂ lb. powdered sugar

*Plain Pastry Crust—III

¹⁄₄ lb. sweet almonds

Chocolate Cream Tartlets

Cream and Fruit Tartlets

¹⁄₄ lb. butter

¹⁄₂ lb. grated cocoanut

¹⁄₂ lb. grated pine-apple

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Preface and Acknowledgments viii

PART I BASIC ISSUES WITHIN THE LIBERAL PARADIGM 43

Liberalism, Freedom, and Culture 179

Epilogue: The Hope of Liberalism 253