George Klosko

I am Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor, Department of Politics, University of Virginia (Ph.D., Columbia, 1977).  This website contains links to my curriculum vitae, syllabi for many of my courses, and links to the Department of Politics and the Political Theory Program at the University of Virginia.  I also include links to some of my publications: about twenty-five of my articles (in different formats), some fifteen book reviews, and reviews of five of my books in different journals.

My research interests include contemporary political theory, especially issues in analytical and normative theory, and the history of political thought.  I teach courses in both areas: in the history of political thought focusing on the liberal tradition and Greek political theory, especially Plato; in contemporary, in specific aspects of liberal theory, including problems of political obligation and the theory of John Rawls and Rawls's critics.

My books include: The Development of Plato's Political Theory (Methuen, 1986; Second Edition, Oxford, 2006); The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation (Rowman and Littlefield, 1992); Democratic Procedures and Liberal Consensus (Oxford University Press, 2000; paperback edition, 2004); Jacobinism and Utopianism: The Political Theory of Fundamental Moral Reform (Notre Dame University Press, 2003); and Political Obligations (Oxford University Press, 2005).  I have also written a two-volume introduction to the history of political theory: History of Political Theory: An Introduction, Volume I: Ancient and Medieval Political Theory; Volume II: Modern Political Theory (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993, 1995); second edition, under contract with Oxford University Press.  

Oxford University Press has recently published The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy (2011), which I edited. My other edited books include Aristotle for the International Library of Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought  (Ashgate, 2007), The Struggle for Women's Rights, with Margaret G. Klosko (Prentice Hall, 1999) and Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory, with Steven Wall (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).  

A new edition of The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligations was recently published, with a new Introduction.  A Chinese translation was also published by Jiangsu People's Publishing House.  My articles, "Presumptive Benefit, Fairness and Political Obligation,"  "The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation," and "Samaritanism and Political Obligation: A Response to Christopher Wellman's 'Liberal Theory of  Political Obligation," have been reprinted in Chinese translation, in Political Obligations: Justifying and Rejecting, S. Mao, ed. and trans. (Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2007).

Recent articles include: "Are Political Obligations Content Independent?" Political Theory 39 (2011). "Knowledge and Law in the Laws: A Response to Xavier Marquez." Political Studies, 59 (2011); "Cosmopolitanism, Political Obligation, and the Welfare State," Political Theory, 37 (2009); "Knowledge and Law in Plato's Laws," Political Studies, 56 (2008); "Multiple Principles of Political Obligation," Political Theory, 32 (2004).

My main projects at the current time are a critical history of the political theory of the American welfare state, from the Progressive era until the present, and preparing a second edition of my two- volume, History of Political Theory: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Recent professional activities include appointment to the editorial board of Polis and the Editorial Advisory Boards of the International Encyclopedia of Political Science,  The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, and Oxford Handbooks on Line. In the fall of 2005 and fall of 2008 I was a visiting faculty member in the Department of Political Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.