In T. H. Green's political philosophy, general political principles are connected to practical political issues. This is one reason why his work is important and interesting. It has often been thought strange, embarrassing even, that Green should want state action to limit the liquor traffic. That seems anomalous in a political philosophy which, it is usually agreed, belongs to the liberal tradition. The temperance organizations to which Green belonged had differing policies, though their aims were compatible enough to allow overlapping membership. There were also factions in each. Green generally adhered to the official line of the UK Alliance, but with a flexibility deriving from his characteristic independence of mind combined with his own judgment of political practicalities. The Common Good is Green's ultimate moral criterion for this and all cases of state action, as it is for every other moral question. Some account of it must therefore be given.

Philosophical BooksVolume 26, Issue 4 p. 207-209 Socrates and the State PETER P. NICHOLSON, PETER P. NICHOLSON UNIVERSITY OF YORKSearch for more papers by this author PETER P. NICHOLSON, PETER P. NICHOLSON UNIVERSITY OF YORKSearch for more papers by this author First published: October 1985 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0149.1985.tb01943.xCitations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume26, Issue4October 1985Pages 207-209 RelatedInformation

K ANT’S reputation as a philosopher, despite some fluctuations, is as established and as high as that of any major philosopher. It is not the same with his reputation as a political philosopher, in the English-speaking world at least. On the one hand, his writings on politics, law, and history have often been dismissed as confused and wrong-headed, a mixture of inconsistency and servile, illiberal, and undemocratic ideas. His Metaphysical Elements of Justice, in particular, has been written off as a tragic lapse explicable only in terms of aging and failing intellect. On the other hand, Kant has sometimes been hailed as a great liberal and constitutionalist (by Popper among others), a friend of freedom and peace, and ranked with the foremost political philosophers; and The A4etaphysical Elements of Justice rated as a leading contribution to legal philosophy. The authors of the books under review subscribe to the latter position. This is a useful corrective, because most standard textbooks on the history of political thought hold versions of the former position. Many such books ignore Kant. For example, he is in neither the Masters of Political Thought nor Hearnshaw’s Social and Political Ideas o f . . . series; he is omitted from Hacker’s Political Theory and MacDonald’s Western Political Theory; and there are only scattered passages on him in Gettell’s History ofPolitical Thought and Sabine’s A History ofPolitical Theory. Neither Wolin in Politics and Vision nor Plamenatz in Man and Society aims at a comprehensive history, but even so it is significant that they feel able to leave out Kant. Other textbooks include Kant, but deal with him quickly and roughly. Dunning, for instance, depicts him as both unoriginal and rather pitiably confused, taking logically incompatible ideas from Rousseau and Montesquieu and trying to blend them ( A History of Political Theories, Vol. iii, pp. 130-6). It is worth considering why a low estimation of Kant’s political philosophy has been so frequent. because this may help to identify certain obstacles to understanding Kant. Many of his moral and political writings were soon translated into English. Kant’s Essuys and Treatises on Moral, Political and carious philosophical subjects appeared in two volumes in 1798-9, and contained a fuller selection of such pieces than has ever been made since. The Metaphysical EIementsofJustice followed in 1799. Reports of the quality of these translations, anonymous but attributed to A. F. M. Willich, vary. However, Kant’s political philosophy was accessible: yet it does not seem to have been taken up, except by a very few, such as de Quincey. The translations became rare books; in 1836 another translator, J. W. Semple, reported he could locate only one copy of the Essays and Treatises. Why this lack of interest? An obvious explanation is the hold of Utilitarian ideas over social and political thinking in Britain. Possibly, the Kantian and Utilitarian philosophies were too opposed at too many fundamental points in epistemology and ethics, for the first to make much impression where the second already had a grip. I do not know whether Bentham ever wrote about Kant: though nothing is indexed in Bowring’s edition. J. S. Mill speaks with respect of Kant’s moral philosophy, but finds it useless, and has no doubt it is radically defective (e.g. Utilitarianism, Collected Works, Vol. X, pp. 207, 249). John Austin damns The Metaphysical Elements of Justice with faint praise, casting aside its most Kantian

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Internal Morality of Law: Fuller and His CriticsPeter P. NicholsonPeter P. Nicholson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 84, Number 4Jul., 1974 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/291928 Views: 118Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1974 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Anatoliy A. Lytvynenko The Hart-Fuller Debate on Law and Morality Within the Prism of the Legal Foundation of the Right to Privacy in its Earlier Jurisprudential Interpretations in German Case-Law, Teisė 119 (Jun 2021): 157–172.https://doi.org/10.15388/Teise.2021.119.10Nico Krisch Legitimacy and Legality in International Law: An Interactional Account. By Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xviii, 411. Index. $112, cloth; $58, paper., American Journal of International Law 106, no.11 (Jan 2017): 203–209.https://doi.org/10.5305/amerjintelaw.106.1.0203S. Viner Fuller’s Concept of Law and Its Cosmopolitan Aims, Law and Philosophy 26, no.11 (Jan 2007): 1–30.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-006-0006-8Dejan Stankovic Law and morality in contemporary philosophy of law, Filozofija i drustvo , no.19-2019-20 (Jan 2002): 203–212.https://doi.org/10.2298/FID0209203SWojciech Sadurski The Concept of Justice, (Jan 1985): 9–56.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_2George W. Johnson Abstracts of Documents in this Supplement, (Jan 1976): 1–482.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5172-4_1

MACKENZIE ON FACT AND VALUE Get access P. P. NICHOLSON P. P. NICHOLSON University of Wales Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mind, Volume LXXIX, Issue 316, October 1970, Pages 602–603, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LXXIX.316.602 Published: 01 October 1970