University Center for Human Values

"Robert Pinsky, Winner of PEN/Voelcker Career-Achievement Award for Poetry" Robert Pinsky, who served as Poet Laureate of the United States, 1997-2000, is the author of many books, including: Jersey Rain, Americans' Favorite Poems, Poems to Read, The Sounds of Poetry, The Handbook of Heartbreak, The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation, among others, and three works published by Princeton: An Explanation of America; The Situation of Poetry; and Sadness and Happiness. He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Boston University. This book emerged from the Tanner Lectures that he delivered at Princeton's University Center for Human Values in 2001. The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public culture, banished to the artistic sidelines to compose variations on insipid themes for a dwindling audience. Robert Pinsky, however, argues that this gloomy diagnosis is as wrongheaded as it is familiar. Pinsky, whose remarkable career as a poet itself undermines the view, writes that to portray poetry and democracy as enemies is to radically misconstrue both. The voice of poetry, he shows, resonates with profound themes at the very heart of democratic culture. There is no one in America better to write on this topic. One of the country's most accomplished poets, Robert Pinsky served an unprecedented two terms as America's Poet Laureate (1997-2000) and led the immensely popular multimedia Favorite Poem Project, which invited Americans to submit and read aloud their favorite poems. Pinsky draws on his experiences and on characteristically sharp and elegant observations of individual poems to argue that expecting poetry to compete with show business is to mistake its greatest democratic strength--its intimate, human scale--as a weakness. As an expression of individual voice, a poem implicitly allies itself with ideas about individual dignity that are democracy's bedrock, far more than is mass participation. Yet poems also summon up communal life.. Even the most inward-looking work imagines a reader. And in their rhythms and cadences poems carry in their very bones the illusion and dynamic of call and response. Poetry, Pinsky writes, cannot help but mediate between the inner consciousness of the individual reader and the outer world of other people. As part of the entertainment industry, he concludes, poetry will always be small and overlooked. As an art--and one that is inescapably democratic--it is massive and fundamental. "An engaging analysis of the way the intimate rhythms of American poetry invoke a social presence. Pinsky, a former poet laureate, passionately argues that American poetry is driven by the anxiety of being forgotten; the solitary poet makes us aware of the presence of others as he yearns for their approval while striving to preserve his uniqueness. . . . He concludes that only through the individual reader does a poem reach full bloom."---Natalya Sukhonos, New York Times Book Review "Pinsky is, by turns, whimsical and profound."---Carol Muske-Dukes, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Pinsky argues forcefully that poetry has not been rendered obsolete by globalization, commercialization, and technological advance; instead, poetry is more necessary than ever, as it gives voice to the individual." "One is never in any doubt about the tendency of Pinsky's argument. He urges appreciation not of what the poet does in writing a poem, but of what the poet does in reading it. The poet mainly counts as one more reader. So, too, Pinsky's idea of the place of poetry in democratic culture comes from an image of someone reading a poem to an audience."---David Bromwich, The New Republic "Pinsky . . . champions the importance of each individual whose breath creates or carries a poem, without which society would be nonexistent."---Alexandra Yurovsky, San Francisco Chronicle "Pinsky's conception of the

Elizabeth Anderson is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Imperative of Integration (Princeton) and Value in Ethics and Economics. She lives in Ann Arbor. Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments-and why we can't see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number probably would be even higher if we recognized most employers for what they are-private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives, on duty and off. We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more-and far more obtrusively-by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free-and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses. In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to workers' off-duty lives. Workers can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. Yet we continue to talk as if early advocates of market society-from John Locke and Adam Smith to Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln-were right when they argued that it would free workers from oppressive authorities. That dream was shattered by the Industrial Revolution, but the myth endures. Private Government offers a better way to talk about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom. Based on the prestigious Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, Private Government is edited and introduced by Stephen Macedo and includes commentary by cultural critic David Bromwich, economist Tyler Cowen, historian Ann Hughes, and philosopher Niko Kolodny. "Private Government is a welcome and important call to bring workplace governance back into political theory and discourse, and should be taken seriously if we are to promote greater democracy in the workplace." "Elizabeth Anderson is a philosopher on the warpath. Her Tanner Lectures . . . take aim at the unelected, arbitrary and dictatorial power that employers, particularly in the US where labour laws are flimsy, hold over their work-forces. . . . [Anderson's argument has] subtlety and force."---Philip Roscoe, Times Higher Education "In Private Government, Elizabeth Anderson . . . explores how the discipline of work has itself become a form of tyranny, documenting the expansive power that firms now wield over their employees in everything from how they dress to what they tweet. . . . [Private Government] highlight[s] the dramatic and alarming changes that work has undergone over the past century--insisting that, in often unseen ways, the changing nature of work threatens the fundamental ideals of democracy: equality and freedom."---Miya Tokumitsu, , The New Republic "[Private Government] gives a clear, powerful argument for ideas that many people will have already had in only inchoate form." "[Private Government] is a well-documented, captivating discussion that should be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner, and an excellent starting point to make that happen." "In Private Government, Anderson explores a striking American contradiction. On the one hand, we are a freedom-obsessed society, wary of government intrusion into our private lives; on the other, we allow ourselves to be tyrannized by our bosses, who enjoy broad powers of micromanagement and coercion."---Joshua Rothman, NewYorker.com "Elizabeth Anderson's b

Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Twitter @NaomiOreskes Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don't? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength-and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo. "This book should be mandatory reading for anyone who is part of the scientific endeavor."-Elisabeth Gilmore, Science "Naomi Oreskes's Why Trust Science? should be read by progressives, conservatives, and everyone in between. It's an important, timely, and utterly compelling book."-Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History "Fascinating. . . . In a field with few reasons to be cheerful, it is both enlightening and encouraging."-Michael Brooks, New Scientist "A compelling argument in favour of experts."-Hettie O'Brien, New Statesman "Eloquent, insightful and bold. . . . This thought-provoking, timely and comprehensive book is a must-read."-Joanna Florence Sparks, Chemistry World

Amy Gutmann is Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor and founding director of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Her books include Democratic Education and, with Anthony Appiah, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (both books available from Princeton) and, with Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement. Americans are joiners. They are members of churches, fraternal and sororal orders, sports leagues, community centers, parent-teacher associations, professional associations, residential associations, literary societies, national and international charities, and service organizations of seemingly all sorts. Social scientists are engaged in a lively argument about whether decreasing proportions of Americans over the past several decades have been joining secondary associations, but no one disputes that freedom of association remains a fundamental personal and political value in the United States. "Nothing," Alexis de Tocqueville argued, "deserves more attention." Yet the value and limits of free association in the United States have not received the attention they deserve. Why is freedom of association valuable for the lives of individuals? What does it contribute to the life of a liberal democracy? This volume explores the individual and civic values of associational freedom in a liberal democracy, as well as the moral and constitutional limits of claims to associational freedom. Beginning with an introductory essay on freedom of association by Amy Gutmann, the first part of this timely volume includes essays on individual rights of association by George Kateb, Michael Walzer, Kent Greenawalt, and Nancy Rosenblum, and the second part includes essays on civic values of association by Will Kymlicka, Yael Tamir, Daniel A. Bell, Sam Fleischacker, Alan Ryan, and Stuart White. "Freedom of Association is exemplary in the consistently high quality and thematic continuity of the contributions."---Margaret Kohn, Political Theory "This collection of essays is the best one-volume introduction to a timely topic: the nature, purposes, moral justifications of (and limitations on) freedom of association in liberal democracies. The contributors link broad philosophical questions to specific practical issues in ways that both philosophers and readers with legal and policy concerns will find illuminating."-William A. Galston, Director, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland

Robert Boyd is Origins Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. His books include How Humans Evolved, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona. How our ability to learn from each other has been the essential ingredient to our remarkable success as a species Human beings are a very different kind of animal. We have evolved to become the most dominant species on Earth. We have a larger geographical range and process more energy than any other creature alive. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive ability-people are just smarter than all the rest. But in this compelling book, Robert Boyd argues that culture-our ability to learn from each other-has been the essential ingredient of our remarkable success. A Different Kind of Animal demonstrates that while people are smart, we are not nearly smart enough to have solved the vast array of problems that confronted our species as it spread across the globe. Over the past two million years, culture has evolved to enable human populations to accumulate superb local adaptations that no individual could ever have invented on their own. It has also made possible the evolution of social norms that allow humans to make common cause with large groups of unrelated individuals, a kind of society not seen anywhere else in nature. This unique combination of cultural adaptation and large-scale cooperation has transformed our species and assured our survival-making us the different kind of animal we are today. Based on the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, A Different Kind of Animal features challenging responses by biologist H. Allen Orr, philosopher Kim Sterelny, economist Paul Seabright, and evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, as well as an introduction by Stephen Macedo. "Boyd is at his best when he explains how norm construction occurs and how cultural transmission of complicated information can spread throughout a group. The work is thought-provoking." "In this lucid, well-argued treatise, anthropologist Robert Boyd avers that we are 'culture-saturated creatures', and that it is culturally transmitted knowledge that sets us apart and explains our dramatic range of behaviours, from rampant violence to great feats of cooperation."---Barbara Kiser, Nature "Boyd's latest book is a clear exposition of his cultural evolutionary view of human evolution."---Thomas J.H. Morgan, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture "Robert Boyd is surely right that we are a 'different kind of animal.' We possess language, we have sophisticated trade and cooperation, but we are also frighteningly deceptive and prone to spasms of unspeakable violence. Boyd shows here in compelling style how our possession of culture-the passing on of learned information-explains the highs, lows, and contradictions in our behaviors."-Mark Pagel, author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind "What makes us unique? Are we really just smart chimpanzees? Why is our species both so cooperative and yet so violent? Addressing these questions, Robert Boyd adroitly combines detailed analyses of diverse societies, crystal-clear experimental studies, and rich descriptions of hunter-gatherer life with the precision that only mathematics can provide. Writing with the confidence of someone who has mastered his own field, and several others, Boyd boldly leads us on a scientific journey to discover who we are and where we came from."-Joseph Henrich, author of The Secret of Our Success "Boyd sees culture as central to human evolution. This book's value lies not just in its eloquent presentation but also in its citing and righting of common misunderstandings of this view."-Richard McElreath, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology "A masterly summary of the argument that accumulated cultural know-how e

Michael W. Doyle is the Harold Brown Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Political Science at Columbia University. He served as assistant secretary-general and special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and is currently the chair of the U.N. Democracy Fund. His books include Making War and Building Peace (Princeton) and Ways of War and Peace. Does the United States have the right to defend itself by striking first, or must it wait until an attack is in progress? Is the Bush Doctrine of aggressive preventive action a justified and legal recourse against threats posed by terrorists and rogue states? Tackling one of the most controversial policy issues of the post-September 11 world, Michael Doyle argues that neither the Bush Doctrine nor customary international law is capable of adequately responding to the pressing security threats of our times. In Striking First, Doyle shows how the Bush Doctrine has consistently disregarded a vital distinction in international law between acts of preemption in the face of imminent threats and those of prevention in the face of the growing offensive capability of an enemy. Taking a close look at the Iraq war, the 1998 attack against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, among other conflicts, he contends that international law must rely more completely on United Nations Charter procedures and develop clearer standards for dealing with lethal but not immediate threats. After explaining how the UN can again play an important role in enforcing international law and strengthening international guidelines for responding to threats, he describes the rare circumstances when unilateral action is indeed necessary. Based on the 2006 Tanner Lectures at Princeton University, Striking First includes responses by distinguished political theorists Richard Tuck and Jeffrey McMahan and international law scholar Harold Koh, yielding a lively debate that will redefine how--and for what reasons--tomorrow's wars are fought. "The arguments presented are lucid, earnest, and thoughtful. Accepting that preemption might be necessary, Doyle builds on the traditional criteria to stress the importance of the lethality and likelihood of the threat and the legitimacy and legality of the response."---Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs "[Doyle] points out...the Bush doctrine is not only dangerously 'subjective' and 'open-ended' but also an 'invitation to chaos' because other states may claim the right to invoke it for their own purposes...Instead of embracing the Bush administration's radical alternative, however, Doyle calls for updating the doctrine of preemption without collapsing it into prevention."---William A. Galston, American Prospect "Striking First, which reflects both the knowledge of a distinguished scholar and the experience and judgment of a practitioner (Doyle was UN assistant secretary-general under Kofi Annan), is an indispensable book for those interested in the question of the justifiability of preventive action against future threats. Given the omnipresence of those threats, that should include all of us. Doyle's careful reasoning and balanced judgments also make this enormously thought-provoking book perfect for the classroom."---Jack S. Levy, Perspectives on Politics "Striking First highlights the dilemma that the United States confronts. Doyle has contributed a thoughtful and significant work to the jus ad bellum conundrum that will surely fuel further useful debate."---Davis R. Robinson, American Journal of International Law "Doyle's book is relatively short but it contains substantial power and a tremendous amount of food for thought. It leads the reader into his/her own debate on the merits of the Bush Doctrine and how the world may be fundamentally altered by it, for better or for worse."---Steve Dobransky, International Journal on World Peace "A big subject is starkly caught in Michael Doyle's bright headlights. The remedies he proposes are

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. We are all familiar with the image of the immensely clever judge who discerns the best rule of common law for the case at hand. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim-"distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal-good law." But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative. In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the "strict constructionism" that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly "smuggle" in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals. This essay is followed by four commentaries by Professors Gordon Wood, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin, who engage Justice Scalia's ideas about judicial interpretation from varying standpoints. In the spirit of debate, Justice Scalia responds to these critics. Featuring a new foreword that discusses Scalia's impact, jurisprudence, and legacy, this witty and trenchant exchange illuminates the brilliance of one of the most influential legal minds of our time. "[We] are lucky to have, in book form, an essay on legal interpretation by Justice Scalia. . . . [He] projects a sanguine humor through a robust prose enlivened by sly sallies against what he sees as the gaps in logic of the opposing camp. He is anything but the angry justice of popular myth."---John O. McGinnis, Wall Street Journal "[T]he Supreme Court's highest-profile conservative . . . Suggest[s] we ought to junk judicial review as we have known it. . . . The reason, I think, is that Scalia objects not merely to certain decisions of this or prior Courts but to judicial review, American-style, in its entirety. His central aim as a jurist has been to get the federal courts out of the business of adjudicating individual rights."---Garrett Epps, The Nation "As this . . . book makes clear, Scalia deserves respect for having redefined the mainstream of constitutional discourse, and in a substantially useful way."---Jeffrey Rosen, New Republic "Love him or hate him (it's hard to imagine a neutral opinion), Scalia is a brilliant and engaging writer. This tantalizing short debate with his equally brilliant critics shows just how radical our most conservative justice is."---Kathleen Kahn, San Francisco Chronicle "Justice Scalia's well-written and patiently explained theory, augmented and challenged by the commentaries of four scholars, will fascinate and enlighten even those readers, and they are many, whom it does not convince. . . . Justice Scalia merits praise for the clarity with which he writes and for the careful thought that un

Ian Morris is professor of classics and a fellow of the Stanford Archaeology Center at Stanford University. The best-selling author of Why the West Rules-for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need-from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past-and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood. "Excellent and thought-provoking. . . . More important, by putting forth a bold, clearly formulated hypothesis, Morris has done a great service to the budding field of scientific history."---Peter Turchin, Science "A provocative explanation for the evolution and divergence of ethical values. . . . In the hands of this talented writer and thinker, [this] material becomes an engaging intellectual adventure." "A very good and enjoyable read."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist "Stimulating."---Russell Warfield, Resurgence & Ecologist "I couldn't more warmly recommend. . . . [This book is] the product of a lifetime's personal experience, mixed with a vast body of research, then distilled through the hand of a gifted wordsmith. It's a book that will help you understand how values-and with them, the world we know today-came to be, and how they evolved through time. . . . Most of all, Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels will show you that apart from a few biologically 'hardwired' ones it's the daily churn of society, not some ultimate authority or moral compass, that dictates our values-that's a very liberating realization."---Alexandru Micu, ZME Science "Ian Morris has thrown another curveball for social science. In this disarmingly readable book, which takes us from prehistory to the present, he offers a new theory of human culture, linking it firmly to economic fundamentals and how humans obtained their energy and resources from nature. This is bold, erudite, and provocative."-Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of How Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty "Ian Morris has emerged in recent years as one of the great big thinkers in history, archaeology, and anthropology, writing books that set people talking and thinking. I found delightful things in every chapter ofForagers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels, interesting enough that I found myself sharing them with family over dinner. The breadth of reading and the command of the subject are just dazzling. His major argument-that value systems adapt themselves to ambient energy structures, in the same way that an organism adapts to its niche-is fascinating."-Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain "This is an important and stylistically excellent book written from a sophisticated materialist perspective. It is eminently readable, lively, and with clearly stated arguments explored in a systematic fashion. In a sense, it follows up on Jared

Jeffrey K. Tulis teaches political science at the University of Texas, Austin. His books include The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton). Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics at Princeton University. His numerous books include Democracy at Risk. Constitutional democracy is at once a flourishing idea filled with optimism and promise--and an enterprise fraught with limitations. Uncovering the reasons for this ambivalence, this book looks at the difficulties of constitutional democracy, and reexamines fundamental questions: What is constitutional democracy? When does it succeed or fail? Can constitutional democracies conduct war? Can they preserve their values and institutions while addressing new forms of global interdependence? The authors gathered here interrogate constitutional democracy's meaning in order to illuminate its future. The book examines key themes--the issues of constitutional failure; the problem of emergency power and whether constitutions should be suspended when emergencies arise; the dilemmas faced when constitutions provide and restrict executive power during wartime; and whether constitutions can adapt to such globalization challenges as immigration, religious resurgence, and nuclear arms proliferation. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Sotirios Barber, Joseph Bessette, Mark Brandon, Daniel Deudney, Christopher Eisgruber, James Fleming, William Harris II, Ran Hirschl, Gary Jacobsohn, Benjamin Kleinerman, Jan-Werner Müller, Kim Scheppele, Rogers Smith, Adrian Vermeule, and Mariah Zeisberg. "In the face of emergency, war, and globalization, even the most enduring and successful constitution in history still confronts the possibility of constitutional failure. Focusing on this central theme, the authoritative essays contained in this book offer cogent arguments, a range of subjects, and a genuine diversity of opinion."-Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University "Provocative and insightful, these essays offer a badly needed tutorial on how to think about the fate of constitutional democracy in the twenty-first century. The volume as a whole demonstrates that the best friends of constitutionalism are those who are unafraid to explore its limits."-Bryan Garsten, Yale University "In this book, some of our most subtle thinkers about the constitutional order discuss its fundamental aspects. These challenging and provocative essays should lead us to think more deeply about problems of constitutionalism in a twenty-first century world of seemingly permanent war and emergency, executive power, religious conflict, and globalization."-Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School "I cannot remember reading another collection of essays that is so strong and compelling. There could hardly be a more important topic than the limits of constitutional democracy in this day and age, and I found every single essay extremely interesting."-Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School "This unique collection-of original, thoughtful, and stimulating essays by many of the country's top constitutional scholars-looks into the nature of constitutional democracy and its capacity to achieve benign ends. The essays provide illuminating and provocative answers and reflect a wide variety of views on the meaning of constitutional success and failure."-Donald P. Kommers, Notre Dame Law School

Michael Ignatieff, a writer, historian, and broadcaster, is Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. His books include Isaiah Berlin: A Life, Blood and Belonging, The Warrior's Honor, and The Needs of Strangers. His novel Scar Tissue was nominated for the Booker Prize, and his book The Russian Album, A Family Memoir won Canada's Governor General's Award and the Heinemann Prize of Britain's Royal Society of Literature. Michael Ignatieff draws on his extensive experience as a writer and commentator on world affairs to present a penetrating account of the successes, failures, and prospects of the human rights revolution. Since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this revolution has brought the world moral progress and broken the nation-state's monopoly on the conduct of international affairs. But it has also faced challenges. Ignatieff argues that human rights activists have rightly drawn criticism from Asia, the Islamic world, and within the West itself for being overambitious and unwilling to accept limits. It is now time, he writes, for activists to embrace a more modest agenda and to reestablish the balance between the rights of states and the rights of citizens. Ignatieff begins by examining the politics of human rights, assessing when it is appropriate to use the fact of human rights abuse to justify intervention in other countries. He then explores the ideas that underpin human rights, warning that human rights must not become an idolatry. In the spirit of Isaiah Berlin, he argues that human rights can command universal assent only if they are designed to protect and enhance the capacity of individuals to lead the lives they wish. By embracing this approach and recognizing that state sovereignty is the best guarantee against chaos, Ignatieff concludes, Western nations will have a better chance of extending the real progress of the past fifty years. Throughout, Ignatieff balances idealism with a sure sense of practical reality earned from his years of travel in zones of war and political turmoil around the globe. Based on the Tanner Lectures that Ignatieff delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2000, the book includes two chapters by Ignatieff, an introduction by Amy Gutmann, comments by four leading scholars--K. Anthony Appiah, David A. Hollinger, Thomas W. Laqueur, and Diane F. Orentlicher--and a response by Ignatieff. "Michael Ignatieff is one of the few people who give political theory a good name. He writes about interesting things in an interesting way, without using jargon and without any attempt to engage in covert practical politics. His essays on human rights display all of these virtues . . . and should be read immediately by anyone who has more than a passing interest in the political landscape of the twenty-first century."---Oliver Letwin, Times Literary Supplement "Bracing. . . . If anyone is superbly equipped to scrutinize the hybrid of theory and practical exigency at the heart of human-rights thinking, it's this unique, independent veteran of the world's war zones. . . . [This is] the shrewdest, subtlest, most realistic assessment of the logic of human rights in years."---Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer "One of the most pleasing aspects of Michael Ignatieff's frequent contributions to the human rights debate is the clarity with which he writes about a subject beset as never before by uncertainty and disagreement. Not least of the achievements of Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry . . . is the simplicity and common sense Ignatieff introduces. And at a time when it has become fashionable to deride the gains made by the human rights movement over the years, his cautious optimism is refreshing."---Caroline Moorehead, The Spectator "This book . . . confirms Michael Ignatieff's reputation as one of the most interesting commentators on human rights issues. . . . An excellent little book. It de

Charles Taylor is Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University; K. Anthony Appiah, Professor of Afro-American Studies and Philosophy at Harvard University; Jürgen Habermas, Professor of Philosophy at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt am Main; Steven C. Rockefeller, Professor of Religion at Middlebury College; Michael Walzer, Permanent Member of the Faculty at the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; Susan Wolf, Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University; and Amy Gutmann, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Director of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition," this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding multiculturalism. Charles Taylor's initial inquiry, which considers whether the institutions of liberal democratic government make room--or should make room--for recognizing the worth of distinctive cultural traditions, remains the centerpiece of this discussion. It is now joined by Jürgen Habermas's extensive essay on the issues of recognition and the democratic constitutional state and by K. Anthony Appiah's commentary on the tensions between personal and collective identities, such as those shaped by religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality, and on the dangerous tendency of multicultural politics to gloss over such tensions. These contributions are joined by those of other well-known thinkers, who further relate the demand for recognition to issues of multicultural education, feminism, and cultural separatism. Praise for the previous edition: "Original and important.... The essays by Taylor and the other contributors raise the debate to a new level, providing it with the high moral seriousness it deserves."---Lawrence Blum, Boston Review "Multiculturalism ... is packed with depth, intelligence, and (to revive an old-fashioned word) wisdom.... It is highly relevant to pressing debates about nationalism and its identity."---Michael Saward, The Times Higher Education Supplement "[Taylor's] comments about multiculturalism in particular demonstrate his knack for finding sensible middle ground between unreasonable extremes.... His writing here is clear, direct, and refreshingly free of philosophical jargon. He is also delightfully nonpartisan."---David McCabe, Commonweal "Multiculturalism . . . is packed with depth, intelligence, and (to revive an old-fashioned word) wisdom."---Michael Saward, The Times Higher Education Supplement "[Taylor's] comments about multiculturalism . . . demonstrate his knack for finding sensible middle ground between unreasonable extremes. . . . His writing here is clear, direct, and refreshingly free of philosophical jargon. He is also delightfully nonpartisan."---David McCabe, Commonweal ". . . engaging, thought-provoking, suggestive, full of insights on questions of intellectual history, philosophical and moral psychology, and current issues in political philosophy and practice." "Because it impinges upon so much--from campus speech to bilingual education to the causes and effects of political correctness--the current discussion on multiculturalism is essential to understanding Western academic culture as it exists today (and as it will exist in the future). This book is a valuable guide to the complexities involved."

Susan Wolf is the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Freedom within Reason. A fresh reflection on what makes life meaningful Most people, including philosophers, tend to classify human motives as falling into one of two categories: the egoistic or the altruistic, the self-interested or the moral. According to Susan Wolf, however, much of what motivates us does not comfortably fit into this scheme. Often we act neither for our own sake nor out of duty or an impersonal concern for the world. Rather, we act out of love for objects that we rightly perceive as worthy of love-and it is these actions that give meaning to our lives. Wolf makes a compelling case that, along with happiness and morality, this kind of meaningfulness constitutes a distinctive dimension of a good life. Written in a lively and engaging style, and full of provocative examples, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is a profound and original reflection on a subject of permanent human concern. "Given the unfortunate (but arguably necessary) divorce of psychology from philosophy more than a century ago, books like Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, which allow for dialogue between these disciplines, are a much-needed and much-welcomed development. . . . Wolf's essay is a psychologically sophisticated philosophical argument on the structure, reality, and importance of meaningfulness in life. Its psychological sophistication lies not in her mastery of any particular empirical literature but rather in her attentiveness to normal, everyday intuitions and feelings."---Russell D. Kosits, PsycCRITIQUES "Susan Wolf's picture of what makes life meaningful is at once powerful and down to earth, deeply argued but unpretentious. Part of Wolf's persuasive force comes from her stylish prose and cool treatment of profound concerns. This book is absorbing and a pleasure to read."-Kieran Setiya, University of Pittsburgh "Susan Wolf is one of the clearest, most thoughtful, and most incisively elegant writers in contemporary ethics. She has an uncanny knack for putting her finger on important points and expressing them in ways that capture the imagination. In this book, she develops her ideas about meaningfulness in life with considerable subtlety, creating a work of genuine depth and importance."-John Martin Fischer, University of California, Riverside

Robert M. Solow is Institute Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1987. He is the author of numerous books and articles, mostly about the sources of economic growth, the nature of the labor market, and other topics in macroeconomics. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow directs his attention here to one of today's most controversial social issues: how to get people off welfare and into jobs. With characteristic eloquence, wit, and rigor, Solow condemns the welfare reforms recently passed by Congress and President Clinton for confronting welfare recipients with an unworkable choice--finding work in the current labor market or losing benefits. He argues that the only practical and fair way to move recipients to work is, in contrast, through an ambitious plan to guarantee that every able-bodied citizen has access to a job. Solow contends that the demand implicit in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act for welfare recipients to find work in the existing labor market has two crucial flaws. First, the labor market would not easily make room for a huge influx of unskilled, inexperienced workers. Second, the normal market adjustment to that influx would drive down earnings for those already in low-wage jobs. Solow concludes that it is legitimate to want welfare recipients to work, but not to want them to live at a miserable standard or to benefit at the expense of the working poor, especially since children are often the first to suffer. Instead, he writes, we should create new demand for unskilled labor through public-service employment and incentives to the private sector--in effect, fair "workfare." Solow presents widely ignored evidence that recipients themselves would welcome the chance to work. But he also points out that practical, morally defensible workfare would be extremely expensive--a problem that politicians who support the idea blithely fail to admit. Throughout, Solow places debate over welfare reform in the context of a struggle to balance competing social values, in particular self-reliance and altruism. The book originated in Solow's 1997 Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University. It includes reactions from the distinguished scholars Gertrude Himmelfarb, Anthony Lewis, Glenn Loury, and John Roemer, who expand on and take issue with Solow's arguments. Work and Welfare is a powerful contribution to debate about welfare reform and a penetrating look at the values that shape its course. "This book should be read by anyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of welfare and the likely consequences of welfare as we shall come to know it. Solow presents a grim but accurate picture of the meager job prospects of most welfare recipients. It is a very readable book based on hard evidence."-Alan Krueger, Princeton University

"Martha C. Nussbaum, Recipient of the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences for 2012" Judith Jarvis Thomson is Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Realm of Rights; Rights, Restitution, and Risk: Essays in Moral Theory; and Acts and Other Events. She coauthored Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity and edited On Being and Saying: Essays for Richard Cartwright. How should we live? What do we owe to other people? In Goodness and Advice, the eminent philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson explores how we should go about answering such fundamental questions. In doing so, she makes major advances in moral philosophy, pointing to some deep problems for influential moral theories and describing the structure of a new and much more promising theory. Thomson begins by lamenting the prevalence of the idea that there is an unbridgeable gap between fact and value--that to say something is good, for example, is not to state a fact, but to do something more like expressing an attitude or feeling. She sets out to challenge this view, first by assessing the apparently powerful claims of Consequentialism. Thomson makes the striking argument that this familiar theory must ultimately fail because its basic requirement--that people should act to bring about the "most good"--is meaningless. It rests on an incoherent conception of goodness, and supplies, not mistaken advice, but no advice at all. Thomson then outlines the theory that she thinks we should opt for instead. This theory says that no acts are, simply, good: an act can at most be good in one or another way--as, for example, good for Smith or for Jones. What we ought to do is, most importantly, to avoid injustice; and whether an act is unjust is a function both of the rights of those affected, including the agent, and of how good or bad the act is for them. The book, which originated in the Tanner lectures that Thomson delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 1999, includes two chapters by Thomson ("Goodness" and "Advice"), provocative comments by four prominent scholars--Martha Nussbaum, Jerome Schneewind, Philip Fisher, and Barbara Herrnstein Smith--and replies by Thomson to those comments. "A highly civilized, lively and provocative exchange between interesting people of diverse backgrounds and positions. . . . A very fine example of a first-rate mind taking great pains to deal carefully, clearly and methodically with perennial problems of the utmost significance."---Saul Smilansky, Times Literary Supplement "As always, Thomson's writing is clear, crisp, and direct." "Contemporary moral philosophy at its best. Thomson's ground plan shows what conditions must be met by any adequate ethical theory. Her arguments are cogent, concise, and uncluttered by literary flourishes."-Mary Mothersill, Columbia University "The main value of these lectures lies in the way Thomson develops moral theory beyond her earlier publications. Her style has always been quite distinctive, and I find it a pleasure to read."-Gilbert Harman, author of Thought

"Winner of the Thomas M. Cooley Book Prize, Georgetown Center for the Constitution" "Finalist for the George Washington Prize, Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, and George Washington's Mount Vernon" Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books include Scalia's Constitution: Essays on Law and Education and Religion and the Constitution. Vital perspectives for the divided Trump era on what the Constitution's framers intended when they defined the extent-and limits-of presidential power One of the most vexing questions for the framers of the Constitution was how to create a vigorous and independent executive without making him king. In today's divided public square, presidential power has never been more contested. The President Who Would Not Be King cuts through the partisan rancor to reveal what the Constitution really tells us about the powers of the president. Michael McConnell provides a comprehensive account of the drafting of presidential powers. Because the framers met behind closed doors and left no records of their deliberations, close attention must be given to their successive drafts. McConnell shows how the framers worked from a mental list of the powers of the British monarch, and consciously decided which powers to strip from the presidency to avoid tyranny. He examines each of these powers in turn, explaining how they were understood at the time of the founding, and goes on to provide a framework for evaluating separation of powers claims, distinguishing between powers that are subject to congressional control and those in which the president has full discretion. Based on the Tanner Lectures at Princeton University, The President Who Would Not Be King restores the original vision of the framers, showing how the Constitution restrains the excesses of an imperial presidency while empowering the executive to govern effectively. "A magnificent, enduring accomplishment. This is the very best account of the founders' understanding of the presidency-their aspirations, their fears, their achievement."-Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University "McConnell's fascinating and exhaustive account sees the framers as centrally concerned with domesticating prerogative powers so as to produce a presidency fit for a republic. One doesn't have to agree with his conclusions to find this book an extremely valuable resource, and it will undoubtedly play a starring role in ongoing constitutional debates over presidential authority."-Gillian Metzger, Columbia Law School "McConnell makes a spectacular contribution to our understanding of both the presidency and the separation of powers. All future scholarship on the meaning of Article II will start with this book."-Steven G. Calabresi, cofounder of the Federalist Society "The President Who Would Not Be King is an essential work by one of the nation's leading legal scholars. This important and provocative book offers an innovative account of the presidency's origins that also dispels numerous longstanding myths. It made me think more deeply and in new ways."-Martin S. Flaherty, author of Restoring the Global Judiciary: Why the Supreme Court Should Rule in U.S. Foreign Affairs "McConnell develops his narrative clearly, patiently, and evenhandedly, and his analysis is rich and strikingly original. I have no doubt that this masterful and deeply illuminating book will become a standard reference on presidential powers and will help set the scholarly agenda in this area for many years to come."-John Mikhail, Georgetown University

"J.M. Coetzee, Winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature" J. M. Coetzee is an internationally renowned novelist, essayist, and literary critic whose many books include The Childhood of Jesus and Age of Iron. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2003. The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello in her later years that she can no longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude taking place on farms and in slaughterhouses, factories, and laboratories across the world. Costello's son, a physics professor, admires her literary achievements, but dreads his mother's lecturing on animal rights at the college where he teaches. His colleagues resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother's vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority. At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but-dare he admit it?-strangely on target. In this landmark book, Nobel Prize–winning writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello's own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction-Coetzee brings all these elements into play. As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee's text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation. "{A} beautifully constructed, troubling, provacative book which resonates in the mind and heart long after you've turned the last page."---Helen Kaye, The Jerusalem Post "If Coetzee . . . were an animal, he would be a fox-quick, aloof and crafty. . . . {A}nimal rights and ethical vegetarianism are natural subjects for him. The debate about them turns on questions of suffering, something to which Coetzee's sensorium is pitched with particular keenness."---Benjamin Kunkel, The Nation "The audience of the 1997-98 Tanner Lectures at Princeton probably expected South African novelist Coetzee to deliver a pair of formal essays. . . . Instead, he gave his listeners fiction: a philosophical narrative about an imaginary feminist novelist . . . and the lectures she reads at the fictional Appleton College." "For Coetzee fans and others interested in the links between philosophy, reason, and the rights of nonhumans." "Fluent, challenging lectures on the ethics that shape the human-animal relationship. . . . Coetzee takes no prisoners. . . . {An} ethical tinderbox." "An accessible, thought-provoking introduction to the issues surrounding animal rights."---Adam Lively, The Sunday Telegraph "Coetzee's dense, witty hybrid is very welcome; . . . {he} brings a rich array of themes into play, including the differences between animals