内容简介

The seven deadly sins of Christianity represent the abysses of character, whereas Shklar's "ordinary vices"--cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, betrayal, and misanthropy--are merely treacherous shoals, flawing our characters with mean-spiritedness and inhumanity. Shklar draws from a brilliant array of writers--Moliere and Dickens on hypocrisy, Jane Austen on snobbery, Shakespeare and Montesquieu on misanthropy, Hawthorne and Nietzsche on cruelty, Conrad and Faulkner on betrayal--to reveal the nature and effects of the vices. She examines their destructive effects, the ambiguities of the moral problems they pose to the liberal ethos, and their implications for government and citizens: liberalism is a difficult and challenging doctrine that demands a tolerance of contradiction, complexity, and the risks of freedom.

作者简介

朱迪丝·N.施克莱 Judith N. Shklar （1928—1992）

美国政治理论家，哈佛大学政治学教授，历任美国政治学与法哲学协会主席、美国政治科学协会主席等，并入选美国艺术与科学学院。对法国和美国政治思想传统有精深研究，对约翰·罗尔斯、理查德·罗蒂等人产生过重要影响。

代表作品有：《政治思想与政治思想家》（Political Thought and Political Thinkers）、《美国公民权》（American Citizenship）、《守法主义》（Legalism）、《平常的恶》（Ordinary Vices）以及The Faces of Injustice、After Utopia: the Decline of Political Faith等。