SWIFT

As the title of Swift's book suggests, this is a book not just about a particular moral issue - the limits of parental partiality in favouring your own children when your choice of a suitable school for them might conflict with your commitment to social justice - but also about political hypocrisy as such. One of the many merits of Swift's subtle and admirably accessible discussion is that he upsets the sense you might easily have that you already know, without giving it much thought, what your beliefs about the shape of a just society require you to do in an unjust society you live in if your actions are to be consistent with your political creed. The link between political beliefs and actions other than voting is in fact less transparent than you might think, and the charge of hypocrisy more difficult to prove, both with regard to yourself and to other people. Perhaps - and this is a possibility Swift does not consider - when you're faced with a practical decision there isn't really any one thing you just have to do for your action to be consistent with your political beliefs. The general lesson of Swift's book is that your beliefs about the just society won't simply dictate your actions, and that political consistency isn't just a matter of putting one's principles into action, but also of knowing what it is that your principles actually demand of you. And that isn't itself contained in the principles and remains for you to work out.