Plato's Revenge: Politics in the Age of Ecology

摘要

William Ophuls' current work attests to the dictum that most authors have but one guiding idea throughout their careers. The current book extends to a constructive framework of Ophuls' previous work diagnosing the problems of growth-dependent political economies, the reality of ecological limits, and the need for ecological virtues to guide collective action. Again, ecology replacing economics as the master science is Ophuls' goal; Thomas Hobbes is his nemesis; and classical virtues are his mechanism for political renewal. Plato's Revenge focuses on overcoming social ills by presenting a program aligning society to the normativity of nature. Ophuls narrates an epic of environmental ethics adroitly combining ecological, spiritual, political, and philosophical domains with inspiring results, even though these results remain fraught with philosophical and practical complications.