George Kateb

We often speak of the dignity owed to a person. And dignity is a word that regularly appears in political speeches. Charters are promulgated in its name, and appeals to it are made when people all over the world struggle to achieve their rights. But what exactly is dignity? When one person physically assaults another, we feel the wrong demands immediate condemnation and legal sanction. Whereas when one person humiliates or thoughtlessly makes use of another, we recognize the wrong and hope for a remedy, but the social response is less clear. The injury itself may be hard to quantify. Given our concern with human dignity, it is odd that it has received comparatively little scrutiny. Here, George Kateb asks what human dignity is and why it matters for the claim to rights. He proposes that dignity is an “existential” value that pertains to the identity of a person as a human being. To injure or even to try to efface someone’s dignity is to treat that person as not human or less than human—as a thing or instrument or subhuman creature. Kateb does not limit the notion of dignity to individuals but extends it to the human species. The dignity of the human species rests on our uniqueness among all other species. In the book’s concluding section, he argues that despite the ravages we have inflicted on it, nature would be worse off without humanity. The supremely fitting task of humanity can be seen as a “stewardship” of nature. This secular defense of human dignity—the first book-length attempt of its kind—crowns the career of a distinguished political thinker.

George Kateb’s writings have been innovatory in exploring the fundamental quandary of how modern democracy—sovereignty vested in the many—might nevertheless protect, respect, promote, even celebrate the singular, albeit ordinary individual. His essays, often leading to unexpected results, have focused on many inter-related topics: rights, representation, constitutionalism, war, evil, extinction, punishment, privacy, patriotism, and more. This book focuses in particular on his thought in three key areas: Dignity These essays exhibit the breadth and complexity of Kateb’s notion of dignity and outline some implications for political theory. Rather than a solely moral approach to the theory of human rights, he elaborates a human-dignity rationale for the very worth of the human species Morality Here Kateb challenges the position that moral considerations are often too demanding to have a place in the rough-and-tumble of modern politics and political analysis. Rejecting common justifications for the propriety of punishment, he insists that state-based punishment is a perplexing moral problem that cannot be allayed by repairing to theories of state legitimacy. Individuality These essays gather some of Kateb’s rejoinders and correctives to common conceptions and customary critiques of the theory of democratic individuality. He explains that Locke’s hesitations and religious backtracking are instructive, perhaps as precursors for the ways in which vestigial beliefs can still cloud moral reasoning.

" What is the meaning of individualism in a modern democracy? In this rich and penetrating book, a major political theorist examines the nature of individualism—the concept of self it implies, the ethic it sustains, the personal connectedness it supports, and the politics it requires—and provides a challenging answer. George Kateb argues that democracy is founded on respect for the dignity of individuals as individuals, and that this respect transforms all human relations. Democratic individuality, in his view, is a way in which individuals whose rights are protected may dare to live their private lives and to conceive their roles as citizens. Kateb employs the concept of individuality not only to criticize communitarianism and to define the limits of the role of the state, but also to approach global concerns involving our relation to nature. The ten essays of this book explore democratic individuality in light of such topics as the power of political institutions to accommodate and express different values, the moral distinctiveness of representative democracy, the implications of the liberal social contract, and the possibility of human extinction. Eloquently addressing issues at the heart of democratic life, The Inner Ocean will be of vital interest to scholars and students in American studies, political theory, and moral philosophy.

One of the most influential philosophers of liberalism turns his attention to the complexity of Lincoln’s political thought. At the center of Lincoln’s career is an intense passion for equality, a passion that runs so deep in the speeches, messages, and letters that it has the force of religious conviction for Lincoln. George Kateb examines these writings to reveal that this passion explains Lincoln’s reverence for both the Constitution and the Union. The abolition of slavery was not originally a tenet of Lincoln’s political religion. He affirmed almost to the end of his life that the preservation of the Union was more important than ending slavery. This attitude was consistent with his judgment that at the founding, the agreement to incorporate slaveholding into the Constitution, and thus secure a Constitution, was more vital to the cause of equality than struggling to keep slavery out of the new nation. In Kateb’s reading, Lincoln destroys the Constitution twice, by suspending it as a wartime measure and then by enacting the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. The first instance was an effort to save the Constitution; the second was an effort to transform it, by making it answer the Declaration’s promises of equality. The man who emerges in Kateb’s account proves himself adequate to the most terrible political situation in American history. Lincoln’s political life, however, illustrates the unsettling truth that in democratic politics—perhaps in all politics—it is nearly impossible to do the right thing for the right reasons, honestly stated.

George Kateb has been one of the most respected and influential political theorists of the last quarter century. His work stands apart from that of many of his contemporaries and resists easy summary. In these essays, Kateb often admonishes himself, in Socratic fashion, to keep political argument as far as possible negative: to be willing to assert what we are not, and what we will not do, and to build modestly from there some account of what we are and what we ought to do. Drawing attention to the non-rational character of many motives that drive people to construct and maintain a political order, he urges greater vigilance in political life and cautions against 'mistakes' not usually acknowledged as such. Patriotism is one such mistake, too often resulting in terrible brutality and injustices. He asks us to consider how commitments to ideals of religion, nation, race, ethnicity, manliness, and courage find themselves in the service of immoral ends, and he exhorts us to remember the dignity of the individual. The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Kateb discusses the expansion of state power (including such topics as surveillance) and the justifications for war recently made by American policy makers. The second section offers essays in moral psychology, and the third comprises fresh interpretations of major thinkers in the tradition of political thought, from Socrates to Arendt.

George Kateb’s writings have been innovatory in exploring the fundamental quandary of how modern democracy—sovereignty vested in the many—might nevertheless protect, respect, promote, even celebrate the singular, albeit ordinary individual. His essays, often leading to unexpected results, have focused on many inter-related topics: rights, representation, constitutionalism, war, evil, extinction, punishment, privacy, patriotism, and more. This book focuses in particular on his thought in three key areas: Dignity These essays exhibit the breadth and complexity of Kateb’s notion of dignity and outline some implications for political theory. Rather than a solely moral approach to the theory of human rights, he elaborates a human-dignity rationale for the very worth of the human species Morality Here Kateb challenges the position that moral considerations are often too demanding to have a place in the rough-and-tumble of modern politics and political analysis. Rejecting common justifications for the propriety of punishment, he insists that state-based punishment is a perplexing moral problem that cannot be allayed by repairing to theories of state legitimacy. Individuality These essays gather some of Kateb’s rejoinders and correctives to common conceptions and customary critiques of the theory of democratic individuality. He explains that Locke’s hesitations and religious backtracking are instructive, perhaps as precursors for the ways in which vestigial beliefs can still cloud moral reasoning.

For over thirty years, George Kateb--along with John Rawls, the late Judith Shklar, and Sir Isaiah Berlin--has been one of liberal political theory's most distinctive voices. An eloquent spokesman for the moral dimensions of individual rights and constitutional democracy, he is a fierce critic of statism and communitarianism and a staunch advocate of individualism in the struggle against all forms of paternalism, conformity, and group-think. Kateb's broad concern as a political theorist has been to unveil the cultural, moral, and existential dimensions of constitutionalism in America. The essays in this book are assembled in his honor, but they are not only celebratory; they pay him homage through their authors' effort to understand the fate of democratic individuality in the modern age. John Hollander and Cornel West contribute reflections on Kateb as a person and a political theorist. Dana Villa, Judith Shklar, and Thomas Dumm write on political theory and the claims of democratic individuality. Democratic individuality and the politics of identity are discussed by Tracy Strong, William Connolly, Benjamin Barber, and Leslie Theile; culture, sensibility, and the self, by David Bromwich, Helene Keyssar, Kim Townsend, and George Shulman. Democratic individuality and civic action are the subjects of essays by Amy Gutmann, Jeffrey Abramson, and Austin Sarat.