2008Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of PhilosophyOpen access

The Four Pillars of Contemporary Political Philosophy

Piotr Bołtuć

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Abstract

We can define all political theories pertinent in contemporary modern societies using a model based on only two variables. The first variable can be characterized as a spectrum between economic right and left wing theories. The spectrum can be easily defined by a strictly economic tradeoff of the desired level of taxation juxtaposed to the desired level of social services. The second variable can be defined as a distinction between liberal-individualistic and communitarian conception of persons.This leads to four positions, the four pillars of contemporary political philosophy: left wing liberalism (popular liberalism), right win liberalism (popular libertarianism), left wing communitarianism (popular socialist communitarianism) and right wing communitarianism (the traditionalist stripe of conservatism). The problem is that the last of those positions has not been well presented in philosophical literature.

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We can define all political theories pertinent in contemporary modern societies using a model based on only two variables. The first variable can be characterized as a spectrum between economic right and left wing theories. The spectrum can be easily defined by a strictly economic tradeoff of the desired level of taxation juxtaposed to the desired level of social services. The second variable can be defined as a distinction between liberal-individualistic and communitarian conception of persons.This leads to four positions, the four pillars of contemporary political philosophy: left wing liberalism (popular liberalism), right win liberalism (popular libertarianism), left wing communitarianism (popular socialist communitarianism) and right wing communitarianism (the traditionalist stripe of conservatism). The problem is that the last of those positions has not been well presented in philosophical literature.

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We can define all political theories pertinent in contemporary modern societies using a model based on only two variables. The first variable can be characterized as a spectrum between economic right and left wing theories. The spectrum can be easily defined by a strictly economic tradeoff of the desired level of taxation juxtaposed to the desired level of social services. The second variable can be defined as a distinction between liberal-individualistic and communitarian conception of persons.This leads to four positions, the four pillars of contemporary political philosophy: left wing liberalism (popular liberalism), right win liberalism (popular libertarianism), left wing communitarianism (popular socialist communitarianism) and right wing communitarianism (the traditionalist stripe of conservatism). The problem is that the last of those positions has not been well presented in philosophical literature.

Key concepts: Politics, Political philosophy, Political science, Law

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