Boundaries and Allegiances: Problems of Justice and Responsibility in Liberal Thought - Softcover

It is difficult to speak too highly about this admirable book of essays. Each essay taken by itself is an exemplary exercise in moral and political philosophy - exemplary especially because of the way in which Scheffler connects deep philosophical questions to social and political changes that condition the answers we give to them. Taken together they display continuity, but almost no repetition. A theme explored in one essay is taken up and developed from a slightly different angle in another, broadening the reader's grasp of the issue... These essays display a remarkable combination of philosophical acuity, moral seriousness and political realism, and deserve to be read closely and repeatedly for the light they shed on our contemporary moral and political predicament. (David Miller in Philosophical Books)

This book, a collection of eleven essays by one of the most interesting moral philosophers currently writing, is written from a perspective that is at once sympathetic towards and critical of liberal political philosophy. The essays explore the capacity of liberal thought, and of the moral traditions on which it draws, to accommodate a variety of challenges posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world. The essays consider how, in an era of rapid globalization, when people's lives are structured by social arrangements and institutions of ever increasing size, complexity, and scope, we can best conceive of the responsibilities of individual agents and the normative significance of people's diverse commitments and allegiances. The volume is linked by common themes including the responsibilities persons have in virtue of belonging to a community, the compatibility of such obligations with equality, the demands of distributive justice in general, and liberalism's relationship to liberty, community, and equality.