Abstract
‘Why do we need political philosophy?’ examines the three ideas that stand at its very heart: that good and bad government profoundly affect the quality of human lives; that the form our government takes is not predetermined: we have a choice to make; and that we can know what distinguishes good government from bad: we can trace the effects of different forms of government, and we can learn what qualities go to make up the best form of government. In other words, there is such a thing as political knowledge, and we can define political philosophy as an investigation into the nature, causes, and effects of good and bad government.
