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Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness is a 1793 book by the philosopher William Godwin, in which the author outlines his political philosophy. It is the first modern work to elucidate anarchism.
Political Justice was extremely influential in its time: after the writings of Burke and Paine, Godwin's was the most popular written response to the French Revolution. Godwin's work was seen by many as illuminating a middle way between the fiery extremes of Burke and Paine.
Jan 16, 2000 · In his An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) he argued that government is a corrupting force in society, perpetuating dependence and ignorance, but that it will be rendered increasingly unnecessary and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge and the expansion of the human understanding. Politics will be displaced by an enlarged ...
William Godwin was a social philosopher, political journalist, and religious dissenter who anticipated the English Romantic literary movement with his writings advancing atheism, anarchism, and personal freedom. Godwin’s idealistic liberalism was based on the principle of the absolute sovereignty.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Political Justice raises deep philosophical questions about the nature of our duty to others that remain central to modern debates on ethics and politics. This edition reprints the first-edition text of 1793, and examines Godwin’s evolving philosophy in the context of his life and work.
b. From Private judgment to Political Justice. Godwin claims there is a reciprocal relationship between the political character of a nation and its people’s experience. He rejects Montesquieu’s suggestion that political character is caused by external contingencies such as the country’s climate.
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Godwin’s best known work of political theory. Written in the early years of the French Revolution before the Terror had begun, Godwin provides a devastating critique of unjust government institutions and optimistically proposes that individuals not the state can best provide for their needs.
