¹ Harcourt, Edward, “Introduction,” in Morality, Reflection, and Ideology, ed. Edward Harcourt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Shklar, “Introduction,” in Political Theory and Ideology, ed. Judith Shklar (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 1.

³ Forrester, Katrina, “Hope and Memory in the Thought of Judith Shklar,” Modern Intellectual History 8, no. 3 (2011): 601–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ She sometimes employs the term more pejoratively. For example, in Ordinary Vices she criticizes ideology for giving people “instant guidance” and encouraging people to “abandon their own judgement.” Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 21–22. In a lecture on G. W. F. Hegel, she characterizes ideologies as political belief systems driven by particular understandings of “the forces of history.” As Shklar there presents matters, ideologies rely on such theories to justify ends, direct political action, and identify enemies to be defeated, presenting those enemies as obstructing the ends that history has destined human beings to achieve. She contends that Hegel developed the theory of history at the heart of this form of ideological politics. Shklar, Judith, “Hegel and Ideology,” in On Political Obligation, ed. Samantha Ashenden, and Hess, Andreas (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019), 121–28.Google Scholar In The Faces of Injustice, Shklar remarks that one of the roles of ideology is to determine what counts as natural misfortune rather than an injustice that can be rectified. Shklar, Judith, The Faces of Injustice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 1Google Scholar. More broadly, the argument of Shklar’s first book, After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith (1957; repr., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), has complex relations to the end-of-ideology outlooks she later rejects in full-throated terms in Judith Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials (1964; repr., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). However, in what follows, I focus on Shklar’s more considered view that all purposeful political thought and action requires some kind of ideological impetus.

⁵ Originally published in 1959, see Shklar, Judith, “Ideology Hunting: The Case of James Harrington,” in Political Thought & Political Thinkers, ed. Hoffmann, Stanley (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 206–43Google Scholar.

⁶ See also, Shklar, “Introduction,” in Shklar, Political Theory and Ideology, 2–3.

⁷ Shklar, “Ideology Hunting,” 207.

⁸ Shklar, Legalism, 4.

⁹ Shklar, Legalism, 4–5; Shklar, “Introduction,” in Shklar, Political Theory and Ideology, 15.

¹⁰ Shklar, Legalism, 5.

¹¹ Freeden, Michael, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 54 Google Scholar.

¹² Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory, 87.

¹³ Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory, 4.

¹⁴ Shklar, Legalism, 6.

¹⁵ Shklar, Legalism, 5–6.

¹⁶ Shklar, Legalism, 224.

¹⁷ Shklar, Legalism, viii.

¹⁸ Shklar, Legalism, 1.

¹⁹ Shklar, Judith, “In Defense of Legalism,” Journal of Legal Education 19, no. 1 (1966): 51 Google Scholar.

²⁰ Shklar, Legalism, 10.

²¹ Shklar, “In Defense of Legalism,” 51–52.

²² Shklar, Legalism, 34–35.

²³ Shklar, Legalism, 38.

²⁴ Shklar, Legalism, 42.

²⁵ Shklar, Legalism, 35. In conversation, Brian Leiter and Dimitrios Tsarapatsanis raise important concerns about Shklar’s understanding of positivism, arguing that a major merit of the positivist distinction between law as it is and law as it ought to be is precisely that it allows us to recognize the ideological provenance of both law and legal decisions. It is, however, worth stressing that Shklar is most interested in highlighting the legalistic ways positivism could be taken up (and perhaps misused) as well as the legalistic frames of mind she thinks it encourages. As I am concerned with what Shklar’s critique of legalism can teach us about her view of ideology and ideological self-consciousness, I leave these questions aside here.

²⁶ Shklar, Legalism, xiii.

²⁷ Shklar, Legalism, 68.

²⁸ Shklar, Legalism, 122–23.

²⁹ Shklar, Legalism, 88. Given that Shklar’s criticism of legalism implicates natural law theorists in this way, I disagree with Seyla Benhabib’s claim that “the real target of her critique is the legal positivist tradition.” Benhabib, Seyla, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 128 Google Scholar.

³⁰ She claims that it is “difficult to imagine what laws other than traffic rules can possibly have the character that is ascribed to genuine law.” Shklar, Legalism, 23.

³¹ Shklar, Legalism, 24. Shklar returns to many of these themes in a later essay: Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” in Hoffmann, Political Thought & Political Thinkers, 27–37.

³² Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, 78.

³³ She also finds it politically unattractive because she believes “that when we can alleviate suffering, whatever its cause, it is passively unjust to stand by and do nothing,” as “[i]t is not the origin of injury, but the possibility of preventing and reducing its costs, that allows us to judge whether there was or was not unjustifiable passivity in the face of disaster.” Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, 81.

³⁴ Shklar, Legalism, 111.

³⁵ Shklar, Legalism, 143.

³⁶ Shklar, Legalism, 10; see also, 142, 187, 220.

³⁷ Shklar, Legalism, 143; see also, 145, 209–10.

³⁸ Shklar, “In Defense of Legalism,” 51.

³⁹ Shklar, “In Defense of Legalism,” 52.

⁴⁰ Shklar, “In Defense of Legalism,” 52n3. Hence, Shklar claims that the rule of law originally had two distinct meanings that have become blurred due to “ideological abuse and general over-use.” Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” 21. She expresses her support for approaches that paint the rule of law in distinctly political terms, as she claims Montesquieu does, by seeing the rule of law as “institutional restraints that prevent government agents from oppressing the rest of society.” Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” 22. The alternative approach, which Shklar traces back to Aristotle, sees the rule of law “as nothing less than the rule of reason.” Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” 21–22. Central to this understanding is the idea of a judging agent as the dispenser of justice. Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” 24. Among Aristotle’s modern followers in this regard, Shklar includes Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin. Shklar, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” 27, 32–36.

⁴¹ Scheuerman, William, “Law and the Liberalism of Fear,” in Between Utopia and Realism: The Political Thought of Judith N. Shklar, ed. Samantha Ashenden, and Hess, Andreas (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 57 Google Scholar.

⁴² Shklar, Legalism, 160.

⁴³ Shklar, Legalism, 145.

⁴⁴ Shklar, Legalism, 168–69.

⁴⁵ Shklar, Legalism, 183. For useful discussion of Shklar’s account of both trials, which highlights some of her more questionable assertions, see Moyn, Samuel, “Judith Shklar versus the International Criminal Court,” Humanity 4, no. 3 (2013): 483–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Scheuerman, “Law and the Liberalism of Fear,” 57.

⁴⁷ Gatta, Giunia, Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century: The Skeptical Radicalism of Judith Shklar (New York: Routledge, 2018), 111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁸ On this point, see Shklar, Judith, “A Life of Learning,” in Liberalism without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar , ed. Bernard Yack, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 274–75Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Moyn, “Judith Shklar versus the International Criminal Court,” 478–79.

⁵⁰ Moyn, “Judith Shklar versus the International Criminal Court,” 494.

⁵¹ Shklar, Legalism, x.

⁵² Shklar, Legalism, x; see also, 121–22.

⁵³ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 249.

⁵⁴ For discussion of this point in relation to the literature on value pluralism in moral and political philosophy, see Hall, Edward, Value, Conflict, and Order: Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, and the Realist Revival in Political Theory (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 108–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Shklar, Legalism, 2.

⁵⁶ In personal correspondence, January 10, 2023, Samuel Moyn questions this line of response by noting that it is difficult to participate in the politics of many countries without thinking and acting legalistically because of the unquestioned and socially domineering role that legalist assumptions play. This strikes me as an acute political observation. However, it is not clear that it undermines the kind of response articulated above. Indeed, liberals of Shklar’s stripe are likely to claim that many of the pathological features of current politics—including its excessive legalism—are a direct result of a widespread refusal to recognize the kind of value pluralism they highlight. In other words, the failure to take pluralism seriously often causes people to ignore how complex and difficult it is to make responsible judgments about how we should live together, here and now.

⁵⁷ Bernard Williams addresses the issue of the audience of political philosophy through a discussion of Shklar’s work, in Williams, Bernard, “The Liberalism of Fear,” in Williams, Bernard, In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 52–62 Google Scholar. Although Williams’s distinction between audience and listeners is characteristically perceptive, he does not address what I am referring to as Shklar’s ideological self-consciousness.

⁵⁸ Shklar, Legalism, 28; see also, 224.

⁵⁹ Shklar, Judith, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 225 Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 226.

⁶¹ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 226–27.

⁶² Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 8Google Scholar.

⁶³ Hannes Bajohr, “The Sources of Liberal Normativity,” in Ashenden and Hess, Between Utopia and Realism, 166. Bajohr cites “Letter to John Rawls,” November 10, 1986. Papers of John Rawls, Harvard University Archives, HUM 48, Series: A Personal Name Correspondence 1973–2001, Box 41.

⁶⁴ Judith Shklar, “The Work of Michael Walzer,” in Hoffmann, Political Thought & Political Thinkers, 383.

⁶⁵ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 227.

⁶⁶ Judith Shklar, “Injustice, Injury, and Inequality: An Introduction,” in Justice and Equality Here and Now, ed. Frank Lucash (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 15.

⁶⁷ Judith Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” in Hoffmann, Political Thought & Political Thinkers, 10–11.

⁶⁸ Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” 12.

⁶⁹ Robin, Corey, Fear: The History of a Political Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁰ Sleat, Matt, Liberal Realism: A Realist Theory of Liberal Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 100–101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷¹ For example, Shklar claims that “[b]ecause the fear of systematic cruelty is so universal, moral claims based on its prohibition have an immediate appeal and can gain recognition without much argument.” Yet she continues by remarking: “Liberals can begin with cruelty as the primary evil only if they go beyond their well-grounded assumption that almost all people fear it and would evade it if they could.” Developing this point, she insists that prohibitions against cruelty can be universalized because if we ask whether the “prohibition would benefit the vast majority of human beings in meeting their known needs and wants,” we can answer in the affirmative. This test, she claims, renders the liberalism of fear compatible with both Kantian and utilitarian approaches to ethics. Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” 11-12.

⁷² Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” 3.

⁷³ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 244.

⁷⁴ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 2–3.

⁷⁵ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 44. Shklar endorses this claim while also insisting that “[p]utting cruelty first has … been tried only rarely, and it is not often discussed” because “[i]t is too deep a threat to reason for most philosophers to contemplate at all.” Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 8. The point, I take it, is that in practice many people may not have thought about this much, even if she believes that some reflective liberals of her stripe recognize the seriousness of cruelty and others can be persuaded to put it first.

⁷⁶ Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 4, 78.

⁷⁷ Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” 4.

⁷⁸ Yack, Bernard, “Political Liberalism: Political, not Philosophical,” Perspectives on Politics 15, no. 1 (2017): 116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁹ In this respect, Shklar’s account of the liberalism of fear may differ from the account of social standing she articulates in her final book, American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). In that book, Shklar claims that a reading of American history and the entrenched beliefs and understandings of American democracy suggest that social standing is dependent on the rights to vote and to earn. Kerry Whiteside contends that this argument displays similarities to Michael Walzer’s own reliance on shared meanings. Whiteside, Kerry, “Justice Uncertain: Judith Shklar on Liberalism, Skepticism, and Equality,” Polity 31, no. 3 (1999): 515–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I do not have space to respond fully to this line of criticism here. However, for a reading of Shklar’s account of social standing that goes some way toward addressing this worry by highlighting the significance of Shklar’s call for political theorizing grounded in history and political science, see Rebecca Buxton, “Judith Shklar’s Social Theory of Citizenship” (unpublished manuscript).

⁸⁰ Bloom, Allan, “Justice: John Rawls vs. the Tradition of Political Philosophy,” American Political Science Review 69, no. 2 (1975): 649 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸¹ I am not suggesting that Shklar consciously endorsed this philosophical position. Rather, this view is compatible with her discussions of the nature of political theory and can help us to make sense of some of the underlying theoretical issues she did not address.

⁸² Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2006), 51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 110.

⁸⁴ Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 51.

⁸⁵ Wallace, R. Jay, The View from Here: On Affirmation, Attachment, and the Limits of Regret (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), xi, n. 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ Gatta, Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century, 114, 115.

⁸⁷ Gatta, Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century, 117.

⁸⁸ Gatta, Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century, 114.

⁸⁹ Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁰ Rorty, Richard, “Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism,” The Journal of Philosophy 80, no. 10 (1983): 584 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹¹ Rorty, “Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism,” 585.

⁹² Rorty, “Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism,” 588.

⁹³ Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” 16.

⁹⁴ Gatta, Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century, 115.

⁹⁵ For a detailed defense of the second claim, see Hall, Edward, “Complacent and Conservative? Redeeming the Liberalism of Fear,” The Journal of Politics 85, no. 3 (2023): 1064–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.