Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (ebook)

Argumento de Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (ebook)

Stephen's book is the finest exposition of conservative thought in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

—Sir Ernest Barker, Political Thought in England—1848 to 1941

Students of political theory will welcome the return to print of this brilliant defense of ordered liberty. Impugning John Stuart Mill's famous treatise, On Liberty, Stephen criticized Mill for turning abstract doctrines of the French Revolution into "the creed of a religion."

Only the constraints of morality and law make liberty possible, warned Stephen, and attempts to impose unlimited freedom, material equality, and an indiscriminate love of humanity will lead inevitably to coercion and tyranny. Liberty must be restrained by custom and tradition if it is to endure; equality must be limited to equality before the law if it is to be just; and fraternity must include actual men, not the amorphous mass of mankind, if it is to be real and genuine.

Stuart D. Warner is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Roosevelt University.0Foreword ix
Editor’s Note xxv
Selected Bibliography xxvii
Preface to the First Edition (1873) xxix

ONE. The Doctrine of Liberty in General 3
TWO. On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion 24
THREE. On the Distinction between the Temporal and Spiritual Power 70
FOUR. The Doctrine of Liberty in Its Application to Morals 82
FIVE. Equality 124
SIX. Fraternity 164
SEVEN. Conclusion 204

Note on Utilitarianism 215
Preface to the Second Edition (1874) 229

Index 253
Comparative Table of Subjects in James Fitzjames Stephen’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and John Stuart Mill’s On Libert 267