Jonathan Wolff (1) (1959–)

This book possesses a virtue I greatly appreciate in non-fiction that purports to teach me something; it is written in a measured and qualified style. Wolff introduces the key points of political philosophy from Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, and so on whilst also recognising the lack of conclusive answers within the discipline. The book is structured around simple yet impossible questions like who should rule and are there such things as natural rights. It provides a useful, accessible, and brief show more introduction to key thinkers, including a much-appreciated chapter on feminist political theory. The book avoids getting bogged down in the many side-questions that occur whilst reading it, such as whether one conclusive model of human nature can ever exist, to what extent happiness can ever be measured, and whether liberty, equality, and fraternity can ever be reconciled.

I enjoyed this book and found that it did what I'd hoped, which was to systematise, formalise, and flesh-out the bits and pieces of political philosophy I'd picked up here and there. It reminded me, for example, of being taught about Bentham and utilitarianism when I was 17. At the time such concepts bored me rigid, which I blame on the tedium of the AS General Studies curriculum. It seems odd in retrospect that at 17 I was fascinated by political abstractions in the context of the French Revolution, but in no way connected this to the dull lessons on broader political philosophy. Likewise, I remember Hobbes being mentioned in my first year of undergraduate studies, during lectures about the British constitution. Apparently it's only now, much later, that I feel there is a gap in my understanding because I ignored previous efforts to introduce me to political philosophy. This book was helpful in filling this gap, as it was introductory but not patronising or overly simplistic.

The sections dealing with the intersection between political philosophy and economics were perhaps where I felt I already knew the most, and thus read less passively. They reminded me of the difficulty there is in drawing a boundary between politics and economics. The latter purports to be a much more empirical, objective discipline, but in my view it is just as ideological and biased by context as any other social science, just less willing to be honest about it. Wolff's points about Stewart Mills were an illustration of this, given Mills support for laissez-faire market economics characteristic of a Victorian industrialist. I am also continually intrigued by the idea, apparently espoused by several political thinkers across the ideological spectrum, that socialism is only suited to a better, more perfect breed of humanity that doesn't exist yet, whilst in our current debased state we must rely on markets to allocate resources. In the 21st century the view of human nature as perfectible seems to have retreated (perhaps mired in associations with eugenics and other horrors?).

Anyway, this book provides a helpful guide to the most important contributions to political philosophy made by great thinkers with indigestibly huge oeuvres of work, such as Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, and Rawls. It is intended to be a broad overview and as such has a focus on work from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. It provides a useful background to reading, for example, Fukuyama. I rather wish I'd read it before tackling 'End of History and the Last Man', but never mind. There is plenty to be picked at in that book without also considering that, it would seem, his conception of human nature is less convincing than what Hobbes wrote some 350 years before. show less

A fine textbook for Political Theory. The main issue is that Political Theory is such a broad and massive subject that is is nearly impossible to have a book survey all of the subject adequately. Also, this is not a reader, so for a true understanding, invest in some old texts.

This is a rare book in political philosophy because it presents a practical categorization of different forms of disadvantage (building on lists published by others) and also an interview-based attempt to identify the most important categories. The book provides a reasonably clear theoretical perspective on inequality, although I did find some of the categories a bit perplexing. The authors also discuss how government policies could best be organized to help the most disadvantaged. The show more practical analysis could perhaps have been improved with more examples, but I suppose the authors had good reasons for keeping the book short. It's a good achievement to write a book which both theoreticians and people who work with practical social policies can enjoy. show less

Guardian columnist Wolff (Philosophy/University College London; Ethics and Public Policy, 2011 etc.) poses a challenging but essential question: “How can there be a human right to health if the resources are just not there to satisfy it?”