Social philosophy examines questions about the foundations of social institutions, social behavior, and interpretations of society in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations.^[1] Social philosophers emphasize understanding the social contexts for political, legal, moral and cultural questions, and the development of novel theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of democracy, natural law, human rights, gender equity and global justice.^[2]

Subdisciplines

There is often a considerable overlap between the questions addressed by social philosophy and ethics or value theory. Other forms of social philosophy include political philosophy and jurisprudence, which are largely concerned with the societies of state and government and their functioning.

Social philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy all share intimate connections with other disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. In turn, the social sciences themselves are of focal interest to the philosophy of social science.

The philosophy of language and social epistemology are subfields which overlap in significant ways with social philosophy.^[3]

Relevant issues

Some topics dealt with by social philosophy are:

• Agency and free will
• The will to power
• Accountability
• Speech acts
• Situational ethics
• Modernism and postmodernism
• Individualism
• Identity
• Property
• Rights
• Authority
• Ideologies
• Cultural criticism

Social philosophers

A list of philosophers that have concerned themselves, although most of them not exclusively, with social philosophy: