George Grant and the Twilight of Justice

Modern men regard themselves as essentially historical beings who are free to make themselves and their world through the power of modern science and technology. In these conceptions of history and freedom which dominate modern thinking lies a dilemma. Joan O’Donovan explores George Grant’s thought about this dilemma and the possibilities of political action and reflection in our age. She finds that Grant regards man’s historical self-consciousness at the basis of the crisis in the public realm, for it excludes the formative Western traditions of freedom and justice which are rooted in Biblical Christianity and Greek philosophy. The problem posed for political philosophy today by the eclipse of this Western heritage is the controlling problem of history in Grant’s work. The author examines the various phases of Grant’s formulation of the problem of history over several decades in light of his intellectual influences and public involvements. She shows how his early patriotic and conservative allegiances give way in the ‘50s to a concern with recovering the Western tradition of freedom in tis theological and philosophical unity, an how this concern receives its most optimist statement in the cautious Hegelianism of Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959). She looks at the dissolution of Grant’s liberal synthesis under the impact of the writings of Leo Strauss and interprets the ironies and ambiguities of Grant’s pessimism in the essays of Technology and Empire (1969) and English-Speaking Justice (1974) which were inspired by his reading of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and draws out the elements of his tragic historical vision. Finally, she subjects Grant’s thinking about history to theological criticism, setting out some theoretical alternatives to historicism within Christian political thought.