Don Herzog

Romantic Anarchism and Pedestrian Liberalism

Emma Goldmans stance toward anarchism was oddly mystified, even loving. Precisely this enchantment led her to see clearly the deep vices of Soviet Russia, when so many on the sane and sober Left were blind to them. So pedestrian liberals ought to relish having the extreme likes of Goldman in their midst. They—we—can faithfully recite their lessons from Mill about free speech, eccentrics, and the proliferation of viewpoints. But more recent liberals and deliberative democrats, insisting on the political centrality of reasonableness, would have problems embracing her. That should give us pause at the politics of reasonableness. And Goldmans infatuation with her own politics offers a tweak on Aristotle: a bad person can make a good citizen.

Gimme that old‐time religion

THE LIBERTARIAN IDEA by Jan Narveson Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.367 pp.,

How to Argue about Health Care

34.95. Libertarianism is an austerely rigorous account of liberalism, but what justifies it? Troubled by the intuitionistic appeals of many libertarians, Jan Narveson attempts to provide foundations for libertarianism by turning to social contract theory. He argues that parties out to advance whatever goals they have, with their current knowledge and motivations, would converge on typically libertarian positions, including a very strong set of private property rights and no affirmative obligation to come to the aid of others. But his arguments simply fail. Nothing justifies libertarianism; indeed its conceptual structure is oddly reminiscent of that of fundamentalist religion.

Patriotism and Other Mistakes

*Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. Despite the aggressive title of this article, my goals are modest. I begin by explaining briefly what should at any rate be obvious: that health care policies inescapably raise moral and political difficulties, difficulties that no technical fix could resolve. I move on to puzzle over the connections between some of the more abstract issues of moral and political theory and medical policy: here I urge that we develop a more

Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders

Patriotism and Other Mistakes. By George Kateb. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 464p.

Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory

35.00.Readers of George Katebs previous work will recognize the authors familiar voice in this collection of papers from the last 17 years or so. By turns earnest (“I know that I preach,” [p. 12]) and cavalier (“I know I am being arbitrary,” [p. 125]), Kateb is intent on plumbing the pernicious irrationalities that seduce us away from his favored stance, democratic individuality. His approach is literary, freewheeling, elliptical. Theorists fond of analytic philosophy will be impatient with how blurry and peremptory his claims can sound. Still, his is an instructive sensibility.