David Archard

This book undertakes a systematic comparative analysis of the political philosophies of Sartre and mealeau-Ponty between 1929 and 1960. It critically explores their pre-war discovery of Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger; It records the impact of the second world war and the subsequent founding of Les Temps Modernes. It also reviews their post-war writing, both journalistic and philosophical. Their eventual divergence of views is hows as developing, against the background of world events, from their initial philosophical outlooks. The book sheds new light on the work of both writers, and sets the question of Marxism's relation to existentialism in historical context.

According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification … political justification … understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifiable to its citizens. In what follows I shall seek to understand the basis for such a belief and, in particular, to expose two possible sources in the views of Locke and Kant. Neither source, I shall argue, provides any warrant for the demand in question. First the bald claim—that the politics of a polity needs justifying—must be unpacked. By way of initial clarification I shall say something about, respectively, ‘justification’ and ‘politics.’

Mary Midgley asserts that my argument concerning the problem of child-abuse was inappropriately framed in the language of rights, and neglected certain pertinent natural facts. I defend the view that the use of rights-talk was both apposite and did not misrepresent the moral problem in question. I assess the status and character of the natural facts Midgley adduces in criticism of my case, concluding that they do not obviously establish the conclusions she believes they do. Finally I briefly respond to the charge that my suggestions were illiberal.

I argue that it is wrong deliberately to bring into existence an individual whose life we can reasonably expect will be of very poor quality. The individual's life would on balance be worth living but would nevertheless fall below a certain threshold. Additionally the prospective parents are unable to have any other child who would enjoy a better existence. Against the claims of John Harris and John Robertson I argue that deliberately to conceive such a child would not be to exercise the right to procreate. For this right is internally constrained by the requirement that any resultant child has the reasonable prospect of a minimally decent life.