The conflict between the claims of the group and those of the individual is one of the most fundamental problems in moral and political theory. Nagel here attempts to clarify the nature of the conflict and to show that its reconciliation is the essential task of any legitimate political system. Within each individual, Nagel believes, there is a division between two standpoints, the personal and the impersonal. Without the impersonal standpoint, he says, there would be no morality, only the clash, compromise, and occasional convergence of individual perspectives. It is because a human being does not occupy only his own point of view that each one of us is susceptible to the claims of others through private and public morality. Political systems, to be legitimate, must achieve an integration of these two standpoints within the individual. Nagel contends that the problem of designing institutions that accomplish this has not yet been solved. Communism, which exalted the 'impersonal' value of equality has clearly failed, but the individualism of democratic capitalism has perpetuated morally unacceptable levels of economic and social inequality. Nagel points to the problem of balancing equality and partiality as the most important issue with which political theorists are now faced. This book is based on Thomas Nagel's John Locke Lectures, delivered at Oxford early in 1990.

托马斯•内格尔，当代英语世界最杰出的哲学家之一，哈佛大学哲学博士，美国艺术与科学院院士、英国科学院通讯院士，先后执教于加州大学伯克利分校、普林斯顿大学，现为纽约大学哲学、法学教授，主要研究领域为政治哲学、伦理学、认识论、心灵哲学，已出版哲学著作十余部，均被视为当代哲学经典。

谭安奎，北京大学哲学博士，中山大学政务学院教授，主要研究领域为政治哲学。