Abstract

According to Plato, the true philosopher will take on political power only with great reluctance. Onora O’Neill is a prominent political philosopher: specifically, a latter day Kantian and a follower of Rawls. She is also Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge and, as Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, a crossbench Peer in the House of Lords. I have no idea whether she was at all reluctant to take on these positions. Happily, on the evidence of the present book, they do not appear to have compromised her philosophy.