Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

Susan Neiman is one of the most distinguished scholars writing today. Her previous book, Evil in Modern Thought , has been widely hailed as a classic. She is a moral philosopher committed to making the tools of her trade relevant to real life. In Moral Clarity , she shows how the resources of the eighteenth century Enlightenment can help us to reconstruct a progressive politics that does not repeat the mistakes of Marxism or succumb to the appeal of unreason. Against a background of books that have sought to call a halt to the very idea of the left, Neiman argues for a commitment to a more just world that is rationally grounded, implacable and insatiable. In her commitment to reason and the facts of the world, in her brilliant readings of the Western canon, and above all in her fierce commitment to politics as a moral endeavour, Neiman makes it possible to believe that the Enlightenment is not yet exhausted and that we are free to join it if we wish.