ABSTRACT
Edmund Burke embodied a category of person he himself regarded as most threatening to the established social order the category of those who had ability but no property. He was born in 1741, the son of an Irish attorney, and studied philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, and law in London. Burkes political career was served in the House of Commons on and off from 1765 to 1794. His views about the duties of a Member of Parliament vis--vis his constituency are set out in his famous Speech to the Electors of Bristol in 1774. If the Hastings campaign places a question mark over Burkes attitude to natural justice, his support for the cause of the American colonists in the 1770s poses an even greater paradox. However, if there is relativism in Burke's political philosophy, it is quite a limited relativism.
