100 books like A Theory of Justice

Not many philosophers receive lots of letters from readers telling them they have changed their lives. But Pierre Hadot, the French philosopher and classicist, did.

Almost singlehandedly, he revived the understanding of ancient philosophy as a way of life—a practice for ordinary people to live better and more flourishing lives. His work is the best combination of serious scholarship and human purpose I know of.

Today, we tend to think of liberalism as a political ideology concerned with politics, law, free markets, and the like.

Rosenblatt’s wonderful book shows us how far—and how poor and anemic—that vision of liberalism is compared to that of its founders in the 19th century. Old-school liberals, including Alexis de Tocqueville, J.S. Mill, Germaine de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, pursued high-minded ethical ideals of what it means to live freely and generously in our modern world. We would do well to remember them.

Of all my superb teachers at Oxford, one stood out: Ronald (Ronnie) Dworkin. He was the sharpest scholar I have ever met. I attended most of his seminars and some of his lectures during my four years at Oxford and deeply cherished my private talks with him. Ronnie was a master communicator of ideas, orally and in writing. He would come to class with an empty yellow pad and speak for one hour non-stop. In this book, Dworkin discusses truth in morals, moral skepticism, moral responsibility, dignity, free will, political rights and concepts. I could have chosen any one of his other great books – Taking Rights Seriously, A Matter of Principle, or Sovereign Virtue. I choose Justice for Hedgehogs because this book discusses themes that I also constantly engage with: Truth, social responsibility, dignity, democracy, equality, liberty, and justice. 

This brilliant book was published one year before my arrival at Oxford and it made a strong, immediate impression. Joseph (Joe) Raz was one of my teachers and his scholarship influenced my thinking greatly. Raz weaves together discussions on law, morals, politics, the nature of autonomy, self-realization, deliberative choice, freedom, and authority. He places the idea of neutrality within the broader concept of antiperfectionism. Raz brought me to think that the conduct of policies can be evaluated on a continuous scale between the two extremes of strict perfectionism and liberal complete neutrality. The policy to be adopted does not have to be either one or the other. It could well take the middle ground, allowing plurality and diversity without resorting to complete neutrality, and involving some form of perfectionism without resorting to coercion. For perfectionism does not necessarily imply governmental exercise of force, nor does it strive to ensure uniformity,… show more.

This is one of the very few books that tackle the neglected subject of offence, and does a great job in doing this. I have been teaching from this book for many years in my freedom of expression courses, and the book always stimulates interesting conversations as Feinberg utilizes many provocative examples to examine offence, what it is, and to what extent it should be tolerated. I recall a fascinating conversation I had with Feinberg about his thesis at Oxford, which helped me elucidate my own understanding of offence, for which I am most grateful.

Offense to Others is the second volume of Joel Feinberg's most impressive work on the moral limits of criminal law, a four-volume work that explores the kinds of conduct the state may make criminal without infringing on the moral autonomy of individual citizens. The other volumes are Harm to Others (1984), Harm to Self (1986),… show more.

What? Another book written in the 1900s? But bear with me, friends. There’s a reason de Beauvoir’s known as the “Mother of Modern Feminism” (and life partner of “Father of Existentialism” Jean-Paul Sartre, whom she’s buried alongside though they never actually had kids together or even shared a home).

Just as a film can shock us to tears when we recognize ourselves or those we love in it, de Beauvoir’s classic showed me some unsavory parts of myself. 

Judith Shklar’s account of the social harms caused by everyday cruelty is exceptional in its clarity and ethical value. She walks readers through vices that people often overlook—cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, misanthropy, and betrayal—showing how these “ordinary” ways of ignoring the needs of other people fray the norms of society.

The ideas are nuanced but her writing is crystal clear. I think this is the best book on ethics I have ever read. 

Moyn’s book picks up where Rosenblatt left off, asking, in effect, “What the hell happened to liberalism?”

He, too, recognizes that the early liberals of the 19th century were inspired by ideals of perfectionism and progressivism. So why did liberalism become so retrenched in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? His answer is compelling: Cold War liberals, terrified by collectivist and violent governments like Nazi Germany and the USSR, made a conscious commitment to scale liberalism way back to a narrow doctrine of individual rights and protection.

His book is a bracing call for liberalism to get its mojo back.

This is another important contribution to our understanding of Spinoza as a moral philosopher. It is a denser read than the first three books, but fascinating nonetheless for those already with a little Spinoza under their belt. Rather than concentrating on just the latter parts of the Ethics, where most scholars interested in Spinoza’s moral philosophy focus and where we find the mature discussion of the “free person” who lives under the “guidance of reason”, Sangiacomo is especially concerned with the evolution of Spinoza’s moral thought from his earliest writings to his final, uncompleted work. He considers tensions within, and pressures upon, Spinoza’s understanding of the “Supreme Good” and how to achieve it, and the changes that that account consequently undergoes. Sangiacomo’s thesis is thus both historical and philosophical.

A strong case can be made that Richard Wolin got the jump on the rest of us with respect to appreciating the continued relevance of the Nietzsche-inspired intellectual far right. The first edition of Seduction of Unreason was published in 2004, 14 years before I published my book. I’m humbled by the fact that it took me so long to wake up to the fact that what was dangerous about Nietzsche in the 20th century remains dangerous today.