Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present

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Jerry Z. Muller
Princeton University Press, 1997 M05 4 - 450 pages

At a time when the label "conservative" is indiscriminately applied to fundamentalists, populists, libertarians, fascists, and the advocates of one or another orthodoxy, this volume offers a nuanced and historically informed presentation of what is distinctive about conservative social and political thought. It is an anthology with an argument, locating the origins of modern conservatism within the Enlightenment and distinguishing between conservatism and orthodoxy. Bringing together important specimens of European and American conservative social and political analysis from the mid-eighteenth century through our own day, Conservatism demonstrates that while the particular institutions that conservatives have sought to conserve have varied, there are characteristic features of conservative argument that recur over time and across national borders.


The book proceeds chronologically through the following sections: Enlightenment Conservatism (David Hume, Edmund Burke, and Justus Möser), The Critique of Revolution (Burke, Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, James Madison, and Rufus Choate), Authority (Matthew Arnold, James Fitzjames Stephen), Inequality (W. H. Mallock, Joseph A. Schumpeter), The Critique of Good Intentions (William Graham Sumner), War (T. E. Hulme), Democracy (Carl Schmitt, Schumpeter), The Limits of Rationalism (Winston Churchill, Michael Oakeshott, Friedrich Hayek, Edward Banfield), The Critique of Social and Cultural Emancipation (Irving Kristol, Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, Hermann Lübbe), and Between Social Science and Cultural Criticism (Arnold Gehlen, Philip Rieff). The book contains an afterword on recurrent tensions and dilemmas of conservative thought.

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Contents

Preface
xiii
Acknowledgments
xvii
Introduction What is Conservative Social and Political Thought?
3
Chapter 1 Enlightenment Conservatism
32
David Hume Of Justice from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 1751¹
36
Introduction to David HumeOf the Origin of Government Of the Original Contract and Of Passive Obedience from Essays Moral Political and Literary
46
Of the Origin of Government 1777 Of the Original Contract 1748 Of Passive Obedience 1748¹ Of the Orgin of Government
48
Introduction to Justus Möser On the Diminished Disgrace of Whores and Their Children in Our Day
70
Chapter 5The Critique of Good Intentions
233
Chapter 6 WAR
249
Chapter 7 Democracy
261
Introduction to Joseph A Schumpeter Political Leadership and Democracy
275
Chapter 8 The Limits of Rationalism
285
Introduction to Michael Oakeshott Rationalism in Politics
290
Introduction to Friedrich Hayek The Errors of Constructivism 1970 and The Mirage of Social Justice 1973
313
Introduction to Edward Banfield The Unheavenly City Revisited
335

Introduction to Justus Möser No Promotion According to Merit
74
Chapter 2 The Critique of Revolution
78
Introduction to Louis de Bonald On Divorce
123
Introduction to Joseph de Maistre Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and of Other Human Institutions
134
Introduction to James Madison Federalist No 49
146
Introduction to Rufus Choate The Position and Functions of the American Bar as an Element of Conservatism in the State
152
Chapter 3 Authority
167
Introduction to James Fitzjames Stephen Liberty Equality Fraternity
187
Chapter 4 Inequality
210
Introduction to Joseph A Schumpeter Aptitude and Social Mobility
222
Chapter 9 The Critique of Social and Cultural Emancipation
358
The Role Meditating Structures in Public Policy
372
Introduction to Hermann LübbeThe Social Consequences of Attempts to Create Equality
390
Chapter 10 Between Social Science and Cultural Criticism
401
Introduction to Philip Rieff Toward a Theory of Culture
411
Recurrent Tension and Dilemmas of Conservative Thought
421
Guide to Further Reading
427
Index
441
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About the author (1997)

Jerry Z. Muller is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His previous books, Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society and The Other God That Failed: Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism are available from Princeton in paperback.

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