Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 1 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservatism | Kekes | Gaus I 131 Conservatism/Kekes/Gaus: Conservatism (...), has different versions, partly because conservatives often disagree with each other about the particular political arrangements that ought to be conserved. There is no disagreement among them, however, that the reasons for or against those arrangements are to be found in the history of the society whose arrangements they are. ConservatismVsContractualism: This commits conservatives to denying that the reasons are to be derived from a hypothetical contract, or from an imagined ideal order, or from what is supposed to be beneficial for the whole of humanity. Questions for conservatism: - To what extent should political arrangements be based on history? - How does the diversity of values affect political arrangements? - What should be the relation between individual autonomy and social authority? - How should political arrangements respond to the prevalence of evil? >Absolutism/Kekes, >Values/Relativism. Gaus I 138 Conservatism on evil: Conservatism has been called the politics of imperfection (O'Sullivan, 1976(1): ch. 10; Quinton, 1978(2)). This is in some ways an apt characterization, but it is misleading in others. It rightly suggests that conservatives reject the idea of human perfectibility. (For the history of the idea, see Passmore, 1970(3); Kekes, 1997(4).) Yet it is too sanguine because it implies that, apart from some imperfections, the human condition is by and large all right. But it is worse than a bad joke to regard as mere imperfections war, genocide, tyranny, torture, terrorism, the drug trade, concentration camps, racism, the murder of religious and political opponents, easily avoidable epidemics and starvation, and other familiar and widespread evils. Conservatives are much more impressed by the prevalence of evil than this label implies. If evil is understood as serious unjustified harm caused by human beings, then the conservative view is that the prevalence of evil is a permanent condition that cannot be significantly altered. >Human Nature/Conservatism. 1. O'Sullivan, Noel (1976) Conservatism. New York: St Martin's. 2. Quinton, Anthony (1978) The Politics of Imperfection. London: Faber and Faber. 3. Passmore, John (1970) The Perfectibility of Man. London: Duckworth. 4. Kekes, John (1997) Against Liberalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kekes, John 2004. „Conservtive Theories“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| |||
No results. Please choose an author or concept or try a different keyword-search.