Political Science Faculty
Ryan Patrick Hanley
Professor
Ryan Patrick Hanley
Contact
McGuinn Hall 429
Telephone: 617-552-3825
Email: ryan.hanley@bc.edu
Education
- B.A. (Honors), University of Pennsylvania
- M.Phil., University of Cambridge
- Ph.D., University of Chicago
Courses
Enlightenment Political Theory
Political Philosophy of 1776
Capitalism and Socialism
Political Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition
Politics and Literature
Graduate Seminars: Adam Smith, Augustine, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Rousseau
Expertise
- Political Philosophy
Department
Biography
Ryan Patrick Hanley is the J. Joseph Moakley Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy (by courtesy) at Boston College. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, he was the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, and held visiting appointments or fellowships at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. A specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, he is the author of over seventy articles and chapters and four books, including Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009), Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge, 2017), Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton, 2019), and The Political Philosophy of Fénelon (Oxford, 2020). He is most recently the editor of Love: A History (Oxford, 2024), in the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series.
Publications
Books
The Political Philosophy of Fénelon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)
Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019)
Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Edited Volumes
Love: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)
Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)
Adam Smith: His Life, Thought, and Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015)
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London: Penguin Classics, 2010)
Recent Articles
“Adam Smith on Social Progress and the Evolution of Love,” Political Theory (forthcoming).
“Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Death of Nations,” Constellations 32 (2025): 184-97.
“Pascal’s Philosophical Method,” History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis 27 (2024): 217-32.
“‘My Entire Philosophy’: The Project of Rousseau’s Lettres morales,” Interpretation 49 (2023): 209-227.
“Distance Learning: The Political Education of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters,” Review of Politics 83 (2021): 533-54.
“Rousseau’s Three Revolutions,” European Journal of Philosophy 29 (2021): 105-119.