Sections
Magazine
Latest Issue

What is the future of liberalism? Timothy Garton Ash outlines the threats to liberal democracy and how it can renew itself in a post-Trump age. Lionel Barber presents an authoritative institutional portrait of the Treasury and Cal Flyn makes the case for a different kind of climate writing.

Read Now Or Checkout the archive
Previous
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
August/September 2020
Events
Next Event

Homes for all: what new social and affordable housing can do for Britain

Previous
Watch: The 2020 Think Tank Awards Ceremony
Watch: What next for pensions? Why the 2020s are the crunch decade
Build, build, build: how can we overcome the barriers to affordable and social housing
To the archive
Podcast
Latest Episode

The Prospect Interview #162: George Saunders’s masterclass in the Russian short story

Previous
The Prospect Interview #161: Women, slavery and resistance
The Prospect Interview #160: Covid-19 then and now
The Prospect Interview #159: Who was the real Jesus?
To the archive
Magazine Opinions Philosophy Barack Obama Julius Caesar

Better a thinker or a doer?

Politicians cannot be the perfect blend of intellectual and action hero

By AC Grayling  
September 18, 2014
October 2014 issue of Prospect magazine

Michael Foot: Thoughtful or useless? © John Redman/AP/Press Association Images

Should politicians be thinkers or doers? The hope that springs readily to mind is that they should be both, as judiciously as possible. There is truth in this cliché—but the key is the role played by judiciousness. The point is interestingly various: thinking should sometimes prevent doing; thinking should help to distinguish which of competing options for doing is best; thinking sometimes just is doing; the necessity for doing has…

Register today to continue reading

You’ve hit your limit of three articles in the last 30 days. To get seven more, simply enter your email address below.

You’ll also receive our free e-book Prospect’s Top Thinkers 2020 and our newsletter with the best new writing on politics, economics, literature and the arts.

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click here to learn more about these purposes and how we use your data. You will be able to opt-out of further contact on the next page and in all our communications.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk

AC Grayling

AC Grayling is a philosopher and the master of the New College of the Humanities

More stories by AC Grayling

More From Prospect