Customer Reviews

Classics of Moral and Political Theory

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This is a most valuable text book. It contains major texts of leading philosophers. I use it as a core text for my introductory course From Plato to Marx. In one volume you will have the leading texts. Highly recommended.

I'm using this book as a text for a political theory/philosophy course. I'm impressed by the selections. However, I had to spend $50 on it at my college bookstore. Buy it here.

CLASSICS should be required reading for every high school and college student, because it grounds one in the fundamental theories that have shaped, and continue to shape, our world. No one can afford NOT to read this book; it's subject matter is too important. After you read this book you'll appreciate why we have it so great in America, because America has actually applied the political ideals that other countries only talk about. In CLASSICS you are able to read the most famous works of the world's most famous philosophers; a word about each is due: Plato, the Father of Philosophy, the Jewel in the Crown, still my very favorite philosopher. Learn that doing right is the path to happiness. Learn about justice, moderation, courage, and wisdom; Aristotle: learn about the importance of moderation in everything, and the importance of establishing, and preserving, a middle class; Epicurus: no comment; Epictetus: the father of Stoicism, a great philosophy for ignoring the world but if you live by this philosophy, don't be surprised if you wake up one day completely disenfranchised!; Augustine: no comment; Machiavelli: always a pleasure to read; learn how the world really is, as opposed to the way we'd like it to be; Hobbes: this guy must have been paid by the word, because he took several hundred pages to say what could have been surmised in one sentence: man is always at war. Locke: a brilliant discussion of the origin of property-a must read!; Hume: not very impressive; Rousseau: excellent; shows that civilization, rather than being the solution, may actually be the problem!; Kant: difficult to comprehend; Mill: excellent insights on liberty; I personally think Thomas Paine did a better job discussing liberty; Marx: hard to believe that people bought the Manifesto, but desperate times called for desperate measures; you can't leave people scrapping for crumbs and expect to reign for long; "On the Jewish Question" is an excellent essay on the importance of having a wall of separation between church and state; Nietzsche: understand why Hitler employed his philosophy so effectively to burn books, and then to burn people. Learn that living is appropriating, and understand the difference between slave morality and master morality. After you read this fantastic book, you'll see the world, and especially the forces that shape it, in a way you could not have imagined previously! Read it, for your sake, and for the sake of both this great country and the greater world we live in!