Introduction

This chapter characterizes contemporary liberal democratic politics as suffering from a lack of a shared good and connects this situation to political philosophers’ embrace of institutional justice and consequent neglect of virtue. It describes the aim of the book as attempting to reunify justice and virtue, first, by reestablishing virtue and the good life as central concepts in political philosophy, and second, by explaining the respective roles of the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character in a good society. It also introduces the three major problems addressed by the book: (1) the problem of political authority, (2) the problem of pluralism, and (3) the problem of unification. Finally, the chapter sketches the book’s approach to these problems, briefly comments on the book’s method, and gives an overview of the chapter contents.