Leo Strauss: Humanity and Political Realism
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Description
Around the time of the Iraq War, a number of books and articles emerged attributing the foreign policy outlook of the George W. Bush Administration to neoconservatives inspired by the émigré German–Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss. Strauss was thought to be the intellectual source for a foreign policy vision animated by a moralistic quest to impose US values on the rest of the world, if necessary by military force; Strauss, and his neocon disciples, such as William Kristol were seen as arch-enemies of constraints on US unilateralism through law or multilateral institutions. A different and contrary view of Strauss has emerged in the work of a range of scholars, some of whom can be placed on the ‘isolationist right’; Strauss is seen as a realist rather than a moralist in foreign policy, and perhaps an adherent to political realism as such.
Source Publication
The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism
Source Editors/Authors
Robert Schuett, Miles Hollingworth
Publication Date
2018
Recommended Citation
Howse, Robert L., "Leo Strauss: Humanity and Political Realism" (2018). Faculty Chapters. 836.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/836
