Friday, May 14, 2010
Review of Perry, "The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy"
Here, in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, is a review of Br. Perry's latest. The reviewer is James Boettcher, of Saint Joseph's University. A taste:
Political philosophers are fond of celebrating various civic virtues including the need for citizens to subject their political judgments to deliberative critical scrutiny. Yet the tendency stubbornly to defend our own theoretical reflections on political life suggests that remaining fully open to the force of the better argument is far from easy. A footnote to The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy recalls Meister Eckhart's insight: "Only the hand that erases can write the true thing" (4, n. 12). With eraser in hand, Michael Perry has spent well over two decades writing about -- and, in the process, adjusting his account of -- the proper political role of religion in liberal democracy. Especially insofar as public intellectuals should exhibit the attitudes and dispositions they would expect of citizens, Perry's willingness not only to revise but sometimes altogether to reject positions set forth in his earlier works is admirable. . .
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/05/review-of-perry-the-political-morality-of-liberal-democracy.html