ENGLISH

Ordinary Vices

By Judith N. Shklar

Book information

Publisher
Belknap Press
Year
1984
ISBN
0674641752, 9780674641754
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
20 MB (20822914 bytes)
Edition
Hardcover
Pages
280\279
Time added
2019-11-19 04:57:31

Description

The seven deadly sins of Christianity represent the abysses of character, whereas Shklar's ordinary vices--cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, betrayal, and misanthropy--are merely treacherous shoals, flawing our characters with mean-spiritedness and inhumanity. Shklar draws from a brilliant array of writers--Moliere and Dickens on hypocrisy, Jane Austen on snobbery, Shakespeare and Montesquieu on misanthropy, Hawthorne and Nietzsche on cruelty, Conrad and Faulkner on betrayal--to reveal the nature and effects of the vices. She examines their destructive effects, the ambiguities of the moral problems they pose to the liberal ethos, and their implications for government and citizens: liberalism is a difficult and challenging doctrine that demands a tolerance of contradiction, complexity, and the risks of freedom.

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