I remember Stanley Benn remarking that one needed to be a certain age to engage with problems in political philosophy - I think he had in mind a certain breadth of understanding and experience - and so my political interests developed more slowly than the others.
John KleinigAs a matter of ethics - our broader social life needs to be constrained by law and other devices - resolving at the societal level matters that should not be left for individual ethical negotiation. What is important - in the end - is that we are enabled to flourish in ways that acknowledge our dignity.
John KleinigThere will always be situations in which conflicts arise between individual and communal values - Catholic police officers deployed to enable women to enter abortion clinics without harassment and doctors who oppose performing abortions. No social role is free of such potential conflicts.
John KleinigLoyalty saves us from the self-advantaging compromising of important relations - such as friendship, marital and professional commitments, group memberships, and so on. But as the Aristotelians would put it, its expression requires phronesis - wisdom not to allow it to compromise other important virtues ,there is something to the ancient doctrine of the unity of the virtues. I believe that is true of all virtues, but especially of the executive virtues - such as industriousness, sincerity, conscientiousness, and courage - which may become detached from substantive goods.
John KleinigFrom time to time I have wished to do more work in philosophy of religion, but the demands and challenges have been such that it needed more work than I had time for. I sneaked a chapter into my book on loyalty that touched on some issues in the area. Maybe in the future I will try responding to Philip Kitcher's excellent critique: Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism - it gets closer to me than much of what is produced in the field.
John Kleinig