Virtue in Political Life

Yves R. Simon (1903-1961), one of the greatest
contemporary philosophers, gives a modern formulation for many classical
philosophical concepts such as authority, the common good, and natural
law. These topics have received extensive attention from scholars. Simon
also discusses the nature of human virtue, moral and intellectual, but
this topic has been less studied until now. The idea of virtue, and in
our case virtue in political life, runs through Simon’s works. Through a
close study of Simon’s works and the relevant secondary literature,
this book explores Simon’s definition of virtue in order to highlight
its originality, and show how he weaves the need for it into the fabric
of three facets of political life, namely, the common good, the virtue
of the ruler and the ruled, and the law. These ideas are important for
the ruler-ship of any country and especially of developing nations which
are populated by sit-tight dictators. Philosophy can be dry and
abstract, yet in this case we deal with one of its more practical
manifestations.