A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism

What principles should govern our relations to the nation-state, to the environment, to other species, to other cultures and to other ways of life? How should we approach marriage, religion, evil and mortality? How should we respond to relativism and nihilism in their current forms? What explains the rise of totalitarianism, and the fatal attraction that it exerts over the educated mind? What is Enlightenment, and what residue has it left in our view of ourselves? Those are some of the questions addressed by Roger Scruton in this scintillating book of philosophical reflections. Well known as a commentator, Roger Scruton makes no concessions to intellectual fashion, and is forthright in expressing what he believes and why he believes it. The result is challenging, but informed throughout by a humane and compassionate outlook. Scruton´s targets are shown to deserve his sceptical assault on them, and the vision that he defends, of a society ordered by custom, tradition and national loyalty, is one that will appeal far more widely than to orthodox conservatives.
Over the past twenty years, Roger Scruton has been developing a conservative view of human beings, human society and culture. In this book he writes a defence of social order, beginning from philosophical first principles which will be a systematic answer to liberal egalitarianism but also a defence of the Western social, religious, cultural and political inheritance. The book also demonstrates that this inheritance is a reflection of the deepest truths about human nature. The tone of the book is positive and the arguments are recommendations with the aim of convincing the reader that rumours of the death of Western civilisation are greatly exaggerated. Scruton analyses what is at stake in the culture wars, showing that Western civilisation is heir to a deep conception of the human being and still has the ability to put that conception into practice. Much of our present self-doubt, argues Scruton, is brought about by the Darwinian theory of evolution, and no defence of the conservative vision will be well-founded if it does not confront the questions raised by Darwin and if it does not show exactly what distinguishes us from other animals.