Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Frank M. Covey, Jr., Loyola Lectures in Political Analysis) - Softcover

Thick and Thin is extremely readable, engaging and perceptive, ambitiously drawing into a unified framework a variety of difficult moral and political issues." -Times Literary Supplement "[This] is a moving, eloquent, and at times inspriring meditation on the problem of obligation . . . Walzer writes on some of the most explosive issues of the day in a voice that is always calm and thoughtful. Our culture is thicker because of his presence." -Commonweal "Walzer thoughtfully answers objections to his many influential volumes of social criticism. . . . After five tight chapters, Walzer posits that we are all made up of several selves-based in our histories, identities, and associations-that we juggle as we confront a world of complex decisions and ambiguous choices. It is among those selves, rather than in a community of eager discussants, that the most profound moral reasoning occurs, a commentary on what Walzer perceives as the current sad state of public discussion and moral debate. . . .[T]his is a well-argued . . . set of carefully wrought ideas on the state of public moral debate." -Kirkus Reviews "Michael Walzer crowds a remarkable amount of original thought into 100 pages. His arguments undermind both the Foucauldian claim that internal, reformist social criticism entails complicity with the status quo, and the Kantian-Habermasian claim that social criticsm must proceed from universal moral truth." -Richard Rorty (1931-2007), University of Virginia