The main directions of analytical political philosophy

Abstract

Modern political philosophy of analytical direction demonstrates the existence of a wide range of trends, conceptual approaches and specific theories that address a variety of issues in the political life of society. All these problems ultimately come down to the problem of the public good — what it is and how it is possible (if at all possible) to achieve. The public good should be understood here very broadly, not as a set of some specific material or spiritual goods, but as what Aristotle called the "good life", for which people, in fact, unite in society and which provides a higher degree of individual and social perfection (first of all, moral). Given that the achievement of the public good is possible only if society is based on the idea of justice, one of the central tasks of political philosophy is the theoretical explication of this idea — to explain what it should be and how society and the state can and must meet it. This idea is fundamental to other social values, the most important of which found expression in the famous slogan of the French Revolution: "Freedom, equality, brotherhood!". Depending on the value accepted as decisive for solving the problem of justice, we can distinguish four main directions of modern analytical political philosophy: utilitarianism (utility), liberalism (freedom), egalitarianism (equality), communitarianism (comunity). According to utilitarianism, the basis of justice, as well as any other concepts of moral and political philosophy, is the principle of usefulness. Socio-political conceptions of the liberal type accept freedom as the main political value. Theories of egalitarianism differ from each other depending on the concept of equality they adopt. According to the communitarian conception, the center of political and philosophical consideration in general and the concept of social justice in particular should deal not with particular individuals, but with communities and society in general.