Code: 04113417

Public Goods, Private Goods

Name: Public Goods, Private Goods
Brand: Princeton University Press
SKU: 04113417
Price: 46.80 EUR
Availability: InStock

by Geuss

Language: English
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2003
More about this

46.80 €

In stock at our supplier
Shipping in 9 - 12 days

Add to wishlist

Russian Cosmists
82.59 €
Buy
Nietzsche: Writings from the Early Notebooks
45.89 €
Buy
News of Paris
32.75 €
Buy
Myopathies, An Issue of Rheumatic Disease Clinics
96.54 € -3 %
Buy

Give this book as a present today

Order book and choose Gift Order.
We will send you book gift voucher at once. You can give it out to anyone.
Book will be send to donee, nothing more to care about.

Book gift voucher sample Read more

You get 117 loyalty points

Book synopsis

Much political thinking today, particularly that influenced by liberalism, assumes a clear distinction between the public and the private, and holds that the correct understanding of this should weigh heavily in our attitude to human goods. It is, for instance, widely held that the state may address human action in the 'public' realm but not in the 'private.' In "Public Goods, Private Goods" Raymond Geuss exposes the profound flaws of such thinking and calls for a more nuanced approach. Drawing on a series of colorful examples from the ancient world, he illustrates some of the many ways in which actions can in fact be understood as public or private. The first chapter discusses Diogenes the Cynic, who flouted conventions about what should be public and what should be private by, among other things, masturbating in the Athenian marketplace.Next comes an analysis of Julius Caesar's decision to defy the Senate by crossing the Rubicon with his army; in doing so, Caesar asserted his dignity as a private person while acting in a public capacity. The third chapter considers St. Augustine's retreat from public life to contemplate his own, private spiritual condition. In the fourth, Geuss goes on to examine recent liberal views, questioning, in particular, common assumptions about the importance of public dialogue and the purportedly unlimited possibilities humans have for reaching consensus.He suggests that the liberal concern to maintain and protect, even at a very high cost, an inviolable 'private sphere' for each individual is confused. Geuss concludes that a view of politics and morality derived from Hobbes and Nietzsche is a more realistic and enlightening way than modern liberalism to think about human goods. Ultimately, he cautions, a simplistic understanding of privacy leads to simplistic ideas about what the state is and is not justified in doing.