Alex Sager

Kai Nielsen is one of Canada’s most distinguished political philosophers. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has published more than 400 papers in political philosophy, ethics, meta-philosophy, and philosophy of religion. He has engaged much of the best work in Anglophone political philosophy, shedding light on many of the central debates and controversies of our time but throughout has remained a unique voice on the political left. _ Pessimism of the Intellect _presents a thoughtful collection of Nielsen’s essays complemented by an extended reflective interview with Nielsen. This collection allows the reader to grasp the systematic scope of his thought and methodology

According to the UN, 65.3 million forcibly displaced people languish in camps and slums or making desperate journeys toward safety. The global community has not only failed to help many of these people; in many cases it has actively obstructed them from finding security and a new home for themselves and their families. Moral responsibilities to refugees are not exhausted by policies and actions. They also extend to how to think about the refugee crisis. Pundits, politicians, and political philosophers have failed to live up to these responsibilities by perpetuating populist myths, the causes of refugees’ flight, and the policies that prevent them from resuming their lives.

Philip Kitcher presents an ambitious account of pragmatic naturalism that incorporates an explanatory story of the emergence and development of ethics, a metaethical perspective on progress, and a normative stance for moral theorizing. This article contends that Kitcher's normative stance is incompatible with the explanatory and metaethical components of his project. Instead, pragmatic naturalists should endorse a normative ethics that is experimental, grounded in practice, and acutely aware of cognitive and informational limitations. In particular, the ethical project would benefit from endorsing empirical work on participatory democracy for the identification of mechanisms to guide us on deep moral conflicts

The second volume of this comprehensive anthology covers the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The anthology is broad ranging both in its selection of material by figures traditionally acknowledged as being of central importance, and in the material it presents by a range of other figures. The material in this volume is presented in three sections. The first, “Power and the State,” includes selections by such figures as Goldman, Lenin, Weber, Schmitt, and Hayek. Among those included in the “Race, Gender, and Colonialism” section are de Beauvoir, Gandhi, Fanon, and Young. The third and by far the longest section, “Rights-Based Liberalism and its Critics,” focuses on the many interrelated directions that social and political philosophy has taken since the publication of John Rawls’s ground-breaking _A Theory of Justice_ in 1971. In order to better meet the needs of today’s students, the editors have made every effort to include accurate and accessible translations of the readings. Additionally, every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting her or his major contributions within the tradition. For figures of central importance, the editors have included extended introductions that place the figure in the context of intellectual history as well as of political thought. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development. The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; _The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought_ sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction.

In The Ethics of Immigration, Joseph Carens’ builds a sophisticated account of justice in immigration based on an interpretation of liberal states’ democratic principles and practices. I dispute Carens’ contention that his hermeneutic methodology supports a broadly liberal egalitarian consensus; instead, the consensus he detects on principles and practices appears because his interpretation presupposes liberal egalitarianism. Carens’ methodology would benefit by engaging with a “hermeneutics of suspicion” that explores the ideological and exclusionary facets of liberal egalitarian principles when applied to immigration. This would contribute to an account of the ethics of immigration that gives more attention to power and interest, mediated through structures of gender, race, and class.