Moral Order in the Western Tradition: Harry Jaffa's Grand Synthesis of Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-206
Author(s):  
Robert P. Kraynak
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Natural Right

AbstractHarry V. Jaffa has inspired a generation of students in American political thought by defending the natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence and of Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa is also a defender of Leo Strauss's idea of a “political science of natural right,” which Strauss drew primarily from classical Greek political philosophy. Jaffa's efforts to defend the several strands of the Western natural right tradition led him to develop a grand synthesis of “Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria,” which I argue is a noble but untenable way of upholding the moral order of the West—and a departure from the intentions of Leo Strauss.

Leo Strauss and the Dignity of American Political Thought

1998 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilson Carey McWiliams
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
American Life ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
American Thought

Leo Strauss wrote only rarely about American thought, but he pointed his students and readers toward the “high adventure” of the American political tradition as a serious encounter with the great questions of political philosophy. Strauss saw American theory as a contest—one fought less between Americans than within them—pitting modernity's “first wave”, with its appeal to reason and natural right, against the more radical individualism and the historicism of later modern doctrine. Religion and classical rationalism, offering their own standards of a right above opinion, had been historically the allies of “first wave”, modernity, but those voices, Strauss recognized, were growing weaker in American life. In recent American teaching and culture, by contrast, Strauss saw that the increasingly dominant ethics of self—interest and success, other political inadequacies aside, were incapable of speaking to the highest aspirations or winning the deepest allegiance of the young. By reviving classical teaching, Strauss also sought to contribute to the rearticulation and reanimation of the American ideal.

Leo Strauss's Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hwa Yol Jung
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right

The political thought of Leo Strauss commands the respect and admiration of even his critics. His critical intellectual carpentry is sharp, cutting, and often rebuking. His criticism of modernity, whether it be that of Machiavelli, Max Weber, an existentialist, or a scientific political scientist, is inspired by and deeply rooted in the Greek intellectualistic essentialism, particularly that of Aristotle, and the age-old tradition of nature and natural right as is shown in his work, Natural Right and History

Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Balot
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
Rational Order ◽  
Stated Purpose

This chapter evaluates the arguments and intentions of Leo Strauss’s most ambitious political text, Natural Right and History. Strauss’s stated purpose is to rehabilitate the ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of “natural right”—a term of art by which he referred to the justice inherent in the rational order of nature. His express motivation was to rebut the relativism and historicism that, in his view, characterized twentieth-century political thought. This chapter contends that the book’s core lies in its implicit presentation of philosophical inquiry as the highest human vocation. This idea is presented less through systematic argument than through Strauss’s own engagement with canonical political texts—an engagement designed to illustrate both the excitement and the fulfillment of philosophical dialogue. The political virtues, while defended on the surface of the text, remain as unsettled by the end as they were in the introduction.

The Revival of Classical Political Philosophy: A Critique

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Rothman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Study ◽  
The University ◽  
Moral Nihilism

Perhaps no single individual has had as much impact on the discipline of political science during the past several years as has Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago. Both he and his disciples (and they are disciples in the “classical” sense) have engaged in a full scale attack upon the premises underlying the contemporary study of politics.Strauss argues that these premises are illfounded and self-contradictory, and, if taken seriously, lead to moral nihilism. He contends, further, that another set of premises, those of “classical natural right,” which treat man in terms of his natural end and his relation to the “mysterious whole,” are capable of providing a more adequate foundation for the study of politics.

A Reply to Rothman

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cropsey
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right

Readers of Stanley Rothman's article “The Revival of Classical Political Philosophy: A Critique” will be aware that the title he has chosen does not indicate the full scope of his endeavor. He has in fact attempted to state and criticize the grounds of classical political and natural philosophy, and to state and in a certain measure defend the grounds of modern social and natural science. Exceptional resources of scholarship and analytic power would be needed to dispose of those tremendous themes, which I believe Rothman has not succeeded in doing. A prominent purpose of Rothman's paper is to criticize the work of Professor Leo Strauss and of some of his students, on the view that he, and after his instruction they, are the animators of the attempted revival of classical doctrines concerning natural right. The attempt to revive natural right is presented as complementary with a belief in the weakness of social science as now understood by the majority of academic and other professionals. The purpose of the present reflections on Rothman's article is to see how far he has made a valid criticism of the classics and of the men he regards as their attempted restorers; and to consider the soundness of his views on the received sciences.

Leo Strauss and the politics of biblical religion

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-363
Author(s):  
Grant Havers
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Biblical Religion

Leo Strauss was one of the few political philosophers of the twentieth century to study the relation between faith and political philosophy. Yet Strauss's notoriously esoteric style has led scholars to wildly diverse interpretations of his views: his defenders believe that Strauss supports biblical religion as an instrument of truth and morality, while his critics contend that he opposes biblical religion for its biases while appreciating its political usefulness. I shall argue that Strauss is deeply opposed to the doctrines and political usage of biblical religion. For biblical doctrines clash with his theory of natural right, the latter being the basis of political stability, according to Strauss.

Natural Rights as Powers to Act

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Susan James
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Right

Spinoza grounds his political philosophy on a highly counter-intuitive conception of natural right as the right to do anything in your power. Just as big fish eat little fish by the right of nature, so humans act by natural right, regardless of what they do. In this essay I explain what leads Spinoza to hold this view and show how, in doing so, he contentiously rejects some of the most central assumptions of the natural law tradition. Finally, I consider whether Spinoza’s view can contribute anything of value to current discussions of natural right. I argue that he draws our attention to prerequisites of a cooperative way of life that contemporary theorists frequently neglect.

The Political Thought of America's Founding Feminists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Pace Vetter
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Harriet Martineau ◽  
Sojourner Truth ◽  
Jacksonian Era ◽  
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Frances Wright (1795–1852), Harriet Martineau (1802–1876), Angelina Grimké (1805–1879), Sarah Grimké (1792–1873), Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), and Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797–1883). These seven women were on the front lines fighting for two of the most important causes in American history: abolitionism and expanding women’s rights. The Jacksonian era in which they lived fundamentally challenged the American project. The potential enfranchisement of marginalized populations—especially women and enslaved persons—led to confrontations over the foundational principles of America. These women are well known to historians, scholars of literature, and others. In comparison, from the perspective of political theory, our understanding of the early women’s rights movement and abolitionism, pivotal developments in American political thought, is still relatively limited. In spite of its openness to nontraditional theorists—the Founders and Abraham Lincoln, for example—American political thought does not extend the same recognition to many abolitionists and early women’s rights advocates. This book examines the works of these seven influential women to show that they offer significant theoretical insights into the founding principles of equality, freedom, citizenship, representation, deliberation, religious toleration, and constitutional reform. Their efforts served as a “civic founding” that laid the groundwork not only for women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery but also for the broader expansion of civil, political, and human rights that would characterize much of the twentieth century and continues to unfold today.

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