Tanner Lectures on Human Values Vol. 26$35.00Edited by Grethe B. Peterson Available August 2006 248 pp., 6 x 9 The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. From “Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution” by Stephen Breyer: The United States is a nation built upon principles of liberty. That liberty means not only freedom from government coercion but also the freedom to participate in the government itself. When Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,” his concern was for abuse of government power. But when he spoke of the rights of the citizen as “a participator in the government of affairs,” when John Adams, his rival, added that all citizens have a “positive passion for the public good,” and when the Founders referred to “public liberty,” they had in mind more than freedom from a despotic government. They had invoked an idea of freedom as old as antiquity, the freedom of the individual citizen to participate in the government and thereby to share with others the right to make or to control the nation’s public acts CONTENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen Breyer Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution Carl Bildt Peace after War: Our Experience Axel Honneth Reification: A Recognition-Theoretical View Paul Farmer Never Again? Reflections on Human Values and Human Rights Grethe Peterson is director of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. She lives in Park City, Utah. |
