Research Catalog

Title

Public policy and the public good / edited by Ethan Fishman ; foreword by Benjamin R. Barber.

Publication

New York : Greenwood Press, 1991.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Fishman, Ethan M.

Description

xxviii, 167 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

As a reading of the recent literature indicates, there has been a trend among public policy analysts to disavow the utility of the Western political tradition for understanding contemporary social dilemmas. This edited collection demonstrates that the history of political philosophy actually increases the awareness of the nature of such problems. By employing models of historical understanding, the contributors permit political theory to illuminate the dilemmas underlying modern policy questions and permit historical theorists to model perspectives that are useful in confronting current policy alternatives. Each of the book's ten chapters, written by some of today's most respected political theorists, explains how knowledge of a specific historical thinker or school of thought can lead to a clearer appreciation of a particular contemporary American policy issue. Among the topics included are an analysis of capital punishment from the perspective of ancient Judaic law; Plato on television news; Aristotle on the crisis in American public education; Aquinas on the controversies involved in American health care policy; Martin Luther on political leadership in democracies; a Hobbesian approach to American interest-group liberalism; a Lockean appraisal of North American native peoples' land claims; a modern republican examination of affirmative action; a liberal critique of surrogate motherhood; and Marx on the social consequences of computer technology. Together, these chapters serve to highlight the Western political tradition and put its accumulated wisdom to use in solving current policy questions. This book will be a valuable resource for courses in public policy analysis, American political thought, and Western political philosophy. Both public and academic libraries will also find it to be a useful addition to their collections.

Series Statement

Contributions in political science, 0147-1066 ; no. 276

Uniform Title

Contributions in political science ; no. 276.

Subject

• Political science > History
• Policy sciences
• Political science
• Geschichte
• Politik
• Politische Philosophie
• Politische Wissenschaft
• Politisches Denken
• Aufsatzsammlung

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-159) and index.

Contents

The Rabbi and the fig tree: a lesson for the Supreme Court on capital punishment / Ethan Fishman -- Plato and the media / Barry Cooper -- The tide just keeps rising: an Aristotelian perspective on the crisis in American education / R. Bruce Douglass -- Aquinas, prudence, and health care policy / Clarke E. Cochran -- Martin Luther on political leadership / Robert Booth Fowler -- A Hobbesian analysis of the dangers of interest-group liberalism / Timothy Fuller -- Native peoples and Lockean philosophy: land claims and self-government / Thomas Flanagan -- The republican tradition and affirmative action / Richard M. Battistoni -- Surrogate motherhood: contract, gender, and liberal politics / Alfonso J. Damico -- Marx and the computer / Victor Ferkiss.

ISBN

• 0313272247
• 9780313272240

LCCN

90022397

OCLC

• ocm22731163
• 22731163
• SCSB-1919716

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library