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
Adam Smith
Politics and Literature
Expertise
- Political Philosophy
Department
Biography
Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science 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 Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009) and Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge, 2017), and Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton, 2019). His most recent projects include The Political Philosophy of Fénelon, and a companion translation volume, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings, both of which will be published by Oxford in 2020.
Publications
The Political Philosophy of Fénelon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Translator and Editor, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).
“The Human Good and the Science of Man,” History of European Ideas (forthcoming).
“Tocqueville and the Philosophy of the Enlightenment,” Cambridge Companion to Democracy in America, ed. Richard Boyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
“Distance Learning: The Political Education of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters,” Review of Politics 83 (2021): 533-54.
“‘The Happiest and Most Honourable Period of My Life’: Adam Smith’s Service to the University of Glasgow,” in The Scottish Enlightenment: Human Nature, Social Theory, and Moral Philosophy, ed. Robin Mills and Craig Smith (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2021), 115-131.
“L’éducation du prince selon Fénelon : de l’amour-propre à la justice,” Revue française d'histoire des idées politiques 53 (2021): 113-24.
“Justice and Politics in the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,” in Hume’s ‘Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals’: A Critical Guide, ed. Wim Lemmens and Esther Kroeker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 53-71.
“Rousseau’s Three Revolutions,” European Journal of Philosophy 29 (2021): 105-119.
“Reply to My Critics” (part of symposium on The Political Philosophy of Fénelon and Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings), European Journal of Political Theory 20 (2021): 599-604.
“Magnanimity and Modernity: Greatness of Soul and Greatness of Mind in the Enlightenment,” in The Measure of Greatness: Philosophers on Magnanimity, ed. Sophia Vasalou (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 176-96.
“Fénelon and Rousseau,” in The Rousseauian Mind, ed. Eve Grace and Christopher Kelly (London: Routledge, 2019), 87-97.
“Isaiah Berlin on the Nature and Purpose of the History of Ideas,” in Cambridge Companion to Isaiah Berlin, ed. Joshua Cherniss and Steven B. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 81-96.
“Smith, Rousseau, and Kant on Learning to Become Just,” in Justice, ed. Mark LeBar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 39-66.
“Freedom and Enlightenment,” in Oxford Handbook of Freedom, ed. David Schmidtz and Carmen Pavel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 223-38.
“Rethinking Kant’s Debts to Rousseau,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99 (2017): 380-404.
“Practicing PPE: The Case of Adam Smith,” Social Philosophy and Policy 34 (2017): 277-295.
Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).