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Emergencies and Politics: A Sober Hobbesian Approach

Emergencies and Politics: A Sober Hobbesian Approach

  • £86.99


Tom Sorell
Cambridge University Press, 9/12/2013
EAN 9781107044319, ISBN10: 1107044316

Hardcover, 250 pages, 23.5 x 15.7 x 1.7 cm
Language: English

In this book Tom Sorell argues that emergencies can justify types of action that would normally be regarded as wrong. Beginning with the ethics of emergencies facing individuals, he explores the range of effective and legitimate private emergency response and its relation to public institutions, such as national governments. He develops a theory of the response of governments to public emergencies which indicates the possibility of a democratic politics that is liberal but that takes seriously threats to life and limb from public disorder, crime or terrorism. Informed by Hobbes, Schmitt and Walzer, but substantially different from them, the book widens the justification for recourse to normally forbidden measures, without resorting to illiberal politics. This book will interest students of politics, philosophy, international relations and law.

1. Private emergencies and institutions
2. Public emergencies, black holes and sober Hobbesianism
3. Liberalism with Hobbesian sobriety
4. Can liberal emergency-response address threats to peoples and civilizations?
5. Liberalism and emergency-response
national community
6. Legislating for emergencies and legislating in emergencies
7. International security, human security and emergency
Conclusion.

Advance praise: 'This is an outstanding book on an under-treated and important topic. With careful and engaging arguments, Sorell develops a 'sober' Hobbesianism that supports a liberal Leviathan and a 'thin' conception of security for international politics, enabling it to speak to some of the most pressing real-world emergencies we presently face. This is Hobbesian political thinking at its best.' Catriona McKinnon, University of Reading