A Review of How to be a Conservative by Roger Scruton

Abstract

In this book Roger Scruton argues that the individualist tendency in liberalism represents a threat to those institutions from which individuals derive the elements of their personal identities, and that it is these elements that create group cohesion. Scruton derives his arguments from Hegel, Edmund Burke, Hobbes, Adam Smith, and Joseph de Maistre. However, in his later works, particularly in his 2007 A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism —his position on liberalism can be seen to change. He later uses Hayek, and moderates his critique of the effects arising from liberalisms policies on the traditional institutions of society.