What is Political Philosophy?

The advent of the Second World War has not only destroyed the social, economic, and moral fabric of human society, the global conflict also erased humankind’s faith in reason itself. The rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe meant that men and women no longer believed in reason. After the end of the war, political philosophy became an abstraction of society's aspirations. Human civilization lost its passion in pursuing the moral good. Echoing Machiavelli, people point to the distinction between the real and the ideal in politics. Even philosophy itself turned to language. Politics meant nothing to scholars who would rather do linguistic analysis.

Book Chapter: Three Basic Moral Principles

(Excerpts, Applied Ethics: Moral Possibilities for a Contemporary World, 2008)

The Ethics of Virtue

Moral virtue, Socrates says, is rooted in moral wisdom. Moral wisdom refers to one’s knowledge of the good. What is the moral good? The opposite of wisdom is ignorance. Virtue is the knowledge of the good. A person of virtue therefore is a man of wisdom. Moral wisdom requires self-examination. Wisdom, Socrates tells us, is about “knowing thyself.”