When Moral und Politik was first published in Germany it provoked heated debate both in and out of the classroom. It even prompted Vittorio Hösle’s critics to publish a collection of essays that responded to his provocative arguments. Available for the first time in an English translation, Morals and Politics, a tour-de-force, is certain to once again cause considerable discussion.


In this ambitious work Hösle attempts no less than an outline of a political ethics for the twenty-first century. He raises the question of the relationship between morals and politics but proposes a relatively complex answer to it. This answer involves a search for a synthesis between the classical, ancient European conviction that political philosophy must be based on ethics and the more modern notion that ethical arguments themselves have a political function. Hösle’s goal is to create a concrete political ethics for the situation in which humanity finds itself today.


This book is divided into three parts. In the first, Hösle defines the problem through a comprehensive survey of political thought. In the second, he addresses the character of human nature, of power, and of the state and its history. Finally, he deals with the philosophy of law as well as with questions concerning the right of resistance and just war theory.


Sweeping in its scope and forceful in its conclusions, Morals and Politics will reshape the way many think about politics and political philosophy.