In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument

Bernard Williams is remembered as one of the most brilliant and original philosophers of the past fifty years. Widely respected as a moral philosopher, Williams began to write about politics in a sustained way in the early 1980s. There followed a stream of articles, lectures, and other major contributions to issues of public concern—all complemented by his many works on ethics, which have important implications for political theory.


This new collection of essays, most of them previously unp...