Roger Scruton Books
Roger Scruton (1944–2020) was a British philosopher, writer, and public intellectual known for his works on aesthetics, political philosophy, and culture. He authored more than fifty books and was one of the most prominent conservative thinkers of his generation.
Known for: Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition, How To Be A Conservative, On Conservatism: A Collection of Essays, The Soul of the World, The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope
Books by Roger Scruton
Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition
This book offers a concise and eloquent defense of the conservative intellectual tradition. Roger Scruton traces the philosophical and historical roots of conservatism, exploring its emphasis on tradi...
How To Be A Conservative
In this book, British philosopher Roger Scruton presents a thoughtful defense of conservatism as a philosophy rooted in love of home, tradition, and the inherited institutions that sustain social orde...
On Conservatism: A Collection of Essays
This collection of essays by British philosopher Roger Scruton explores the intellectual foundations, moral vision, and cultural significance of conservatism. Drawing on political philosophy, history,...
The Soul of the World
In this philosophical work, Roger Scruton explores the human experience of the sacred and the transcendent. He argues that our sense of the sacred is essential to understanding art, morality, and comm...
The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope
In this philosophical work, Roger Scruton argues that optimism, when detached from reality, can lead to destructive social and political outcomes. He defends a rational form of pessimism as a necessar...
Key Insights from Roger Scruton
The Origins of the Conservative Temperament
Conservatism emerged from the turmoil of the eighteenth century, when the ideals of the Enlightenment and the revolutionary fervor of France promised liberation through reason alone. Against these upheavals stood those, like Burke and others, who discerned the fragility of civilization stripped of t...
From Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition
Edmund Burke and the Moral Imagination
No voice shaped conservatism more than Edmund Burke. For Burke, the tragedy of the French Revolution lay not in its desire for freedom but in its contempt for the moral imagination—the capacity to see others as part of a sacred continuity of human life. He taught that society is not a contract among...
From Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition
The Meaning of Home
The word *oikophilia*—love of home—is at the heart of conservatism. It is not a sentimental attachment to the place one happens to inhabit, but a moral sense of belonging. Home, for me, is the first environment in which we learn responsibility. It is where we discover that freedom flourishes only wi...
From How To Be A Conservative
The Nature of Society
We must reject the modern conceit that society is a contract between self-interested individuals. Society is not designed; it grows. It is an organism of customs, institutions, and moral habits that bind us together through trust rather than calculation. To treat society as an artifact to be enginee...
From How To Be A Conservative
Historical Roots
Modern conservatism arose as a response, not a mere reaction, to the revolutionary fervor unleashed by the Enlightenment. In the eighteenth century, thinkers like Edmund Burke saw with clarity that reason unmoored from tradition led not to liberation but to tyranny. The French Revolution, in its que...
From On Conservatism: A Collection of Essays
Moral Foundations
The moral vision underlying conservatism begins with the virtue of gratitude. We are moral beings because we stand within a web of inherited relationships, and gratitude is the sentiment that acknowledges this dependence. Duty and virtue emerge not from abstract calculations but from belonging — fro...
From On Conservatism: A Collection of Essays
About Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton (1944–2020) was a British philosopher, writer, and public intellectual known for his works on aesthetics, political philosophy, and culture. He authored more than fifty books and was one of the most prominent conservative thinkers of his generation.
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Roger Scruton (1944–2020) was a British philosopher, writer, and public intellectual known for his works on aesthetics, political philosophy, and culture. He authored more than fifty books and was one of the most prominent conservative thinkers of his generation.
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