Updated on 2025/05/09

写真a

 
HIRUTA, Kei
 
Affiliation
Faculty of Political Science and Economics, School of Political Science and Economics
Job title
Associate Professor
Degree
D.Phil. Political Theory ( University of Oxford )
Homepage URL
https://www.waseda.jp/fpse/faculty/2025/04/01/2701/

Research Experience

  • 2025
    -
    Now

    Waseda University   Faculty of Political Science and Economics   Associate Professor of Political Theory

  • 2022
    -
    Now

    Royal Historical Society   Fellow   FRHistS

  • 2022
    -
    2025

    Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

  • 2019
    -
    2022

    Aarhus University

  • 2018
    -
    2019

    Institute for Advanced Study Paris

  • 2013
    -
    2019

    Wolfson College, Oxford   Junior Research Fellow (2013-16); Research Fellow (2019)

  • 2012
    -
    2018

    University of Oxford   Research Fellow

  • 2017
    -
    　

    Hannah Arendt Center, Bard College   Visiting Scholar

  • 2008
    -
    2015

    Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs   Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow (2008-12), Global Ethics Fellow (2012-15)

  • 2012
    　
    　

    The University of Tokyo

  • 2011
    -
    2012

    Columbia University   Centre for Human Rights; Department of History   Visiting Scholar

  • 2007
    -
    2008

    St Edmonds Hall, Oxford   Tutor in Political Thought

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Committee Memberships

  • 2016
    -
    Now

    Arendt Studies  Associate Editor (2016-21); Consulting Editor (2021-ongoing)

  • 2013
    -
    2021

    Hannah Arendt Circle  Board of Directors (2017-21); Chair of the Executive Committee (2014-15); Committee Member (2013-14)

  • 2016
    -
    2018

    Member of the Steering Committee

  • 2012
    -
    2018

    Journal of Practical Ethics  Associate Editor

Research Areas

  • Philosophy and ethics   Political Philosophy, Normative Ethics, Applied Ethics, Value Theory / Politics   Political Theory / History of thought   社会・政治思想史（19世紀〜現代）

Awards

  • JSPS Prize

    2024  

 

Papers

  • The Contested Legacy of Cold War Liberalism

    Kei Hiruta

    Global Intellectual History     1 - 9  2024.01

    DOI

  • Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Liberal Nationalism

    Kei Hiruta

    American Political Science Review   117 ( 3 ) 940 - 952  2023.08

    　View Summary

    Discussing An Outline of a Theory of Civilization by the Japanese thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi, this essay shows how theorists of liberal nationalism might draw on non-Western theoretical resources to enrich their normative ideas and better appreciate their own tradition. I argue that Fukuzawa's work represents an alternative strand of liberal nationalism that complements its mainstream counterpart pioneered by David Miller, Yael Tamir, and others. More specifically, I argue that Fukuzawa's contributions help us reconsider three central claims made by his more mainstream peers: (1) cosmopolitanism poses the most important threat to liberal nationalism, (2) the strength of liberal nationalism lies in its perceptiveness about ordinary people's sense of national belonging, and (3) liberal nationalism emerged in mid-nineteenth-century Europe and spread elsewhere in the age of decolonization. In so doing, I show how the current comparative turn in political theory can benefit a specific debate - on liberal nationalism - within the discipline.

    DOI

  • Value Pluralism, Realism and Pessimism

    Kei Hiruta

    Res Publica   26 ( 4 ) 523 - 540  2020.11

    　View Summary

    Value pluralists see themselves as philosophical grown-ups. They profess to face reality as it is and accept resultant pessimism, while criticising their monist rivals for holding on to the naïve idea that the right, the good and the beautiful are ultimately harmonisable with each other. The aim of this essay is to challenge this self-image of value pluralists. Notwithstanding its usefulness as a means of subverting monist dominance, I argue that the self-image has the downside of obscuring various theoretical positions that do not fall into either the pluralist or monist camp. Yet such positions do exist, as shown by my discussion of Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Near contemporaries of the pioneering value pluralist Isaiah Berlin, the pair, just like him, sought to be realistic about the lived experiences of political disasters and moral disorientation in the twentieth century. Moreover, they shared with Berlin a keen interest in real-world moral dilemmas, which seemed to them (as well as to Berlin) to have made traditional morality obsolete. But the three thinkers’ perspectives on ‘reality’ hardly converged, and neither Camus nor Arendt became a value pluralist as a result of their reflections on moral dilemmas. This, however, by no means indicates the pair’s immaturity. Rather, it shows that there is more than one way of observing fidelity to our actual experience and that value pluralists’ commitment to realism and resultant pessimism is not as uniquely mature as they would have us believe.

    DOI

  • An ‘anti-utopian age?’: Isaiah Berlin’s England, Hannah Arendt’s America, and utopian thinking in dark times

    Kei Hiruta

    Journal of Political Ideologies   22 ( 1 ) 12 - 29  2016.11

    DOI

  • Methodology, comparison and humanity: a reply to Otobe, Futai and Yamaoka

    Kei Hiruta

    Japanese Journal of Political Science    2023.12

    DOI

  • Fukuzawa, Liberalism, and the Imperial Temptation

    Kei Hiruta

    Comparative Political Theory   3 ( 2 ) 215 - 225  2023.07

    　View Summary

    Abstract

    This review essay juxtaposes Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Bourgeois Liberalism by Minhyuk Hwang with Progress, Pluralism, and Politics by David Williams, both published in 2020. Although the two books are motivated by different concerns and are likely to attract different audiences, I show that they can be read together to throw light on the complicated relationship between liberalism and empire from a comparative angle. On the one hand, I draw on Williams’s book and other recent works in the history of political thought to criticize some aspects of Hwang’s discussion of Fukuzawa. On the other hand, I draw on Hwang’s book and other studies on Fukuzawa to tease out the implications of Williams’s book for an important issue that has been marginalized in the recent Anglophone scholarship on liberalism and empire: the imperial temptation for non-Western liberals.

    DOI

  • How Great Is the Great Divide?

    Kei Hiruta

    Journal of Social and Political Philosophy   1 ( 2 ) 203 - 206  2022

    DOI

  • Moral Conflict and Political Obligation in (Highly) Non-ideal Conditions

    Fives, A., Hiruta, K.

    Res Publica   26 ( 4 )  2020

    DOI

  • アーレントと多元主義 : 再考—Ārento to tagen shugi : saikō—Arendt and pluralism reconsidered

    蛭田, 圭

    法學研究 : 法律・政治・社会   91 ( 10 ) 39 - 81  2018.10

    　View Summary

    type:text
    はじめに
    一. アーレントと多元主義を考えるための予備作業
    二. 多元主義という考え
    三. 三つの多元主義概念
    四. アーレントの多元主義?
    五. アーレントの一元主義
    六. 一元主義から多元性へ
    おわりに
    論説

    CiNii

  • 政治哲学

    大澤 津, 蛭田 圭

    イギリス哲学研究   41   93 - 104  2018.03

    　View Summary

    A survey of recent developments in political philosophy in Britain, commissioned by the Japanese Society for British Philosophy

    DOI CiNii

  • A Democratic Consensus? Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, and the Anti-totalitarian Family Quarrel

    Kei Hiruta

    Think   17 ( 48 ) 25 - 37  2018.02

    DOI

  • The Meaning and Value of Freedom: Berlin contra Arendt

    Kei Hiruta

    The European Legacy   19 ( 7 ) 854 - 868  2014.09

    DOI

  • What pluralism, why pluralism, and how? A response to Charles Ess

    Hiruta, K.

    Ethics and Information Technology   8 ( 4 )  2006

    DOI

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Books and Other Publications

  • Rethinking Political Thinkers

    Manjeet Ramgotra, Simon Choa( Part： Contributor, Hannah Arendt)

    Oxford University Press  2023.03 ISBN: 9780198847397

  • Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics and Humanity

    Hiruta, Kei( Part： Sole author)

    Princeton University Press  2021 ISBN: 9780691182261

    　View Summary

    One of Bloomberg’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2021
    Shortlisted for the Gladstone Book Prize, Royal Historical Society
    Shortlisted for the ECPR Political Theory Prize, European Consortium for Political Research

  • Arendt on Freedom, Liberation, and Revolution

    Hiruta, Kei( Part： Edit)

    Palgrave Macmillan  2019 ISBN: 9783030116941

  • 汉娜·阿伦特与以赛亚·伯林 : 自由、政治与人性

    蛭田圭 著, 孟凡礼 译

    贵州人民出版社  2024

  • アーレント読本

    ハンナ・アーレント研究会( Part： Contributor, 「英語圏におけるアーレント研究」)

    法政大学出版局  2020 ISBN: 9784588151095

  • The Bloomsbury Companion to Arendt

    Peter Gratton, Yasemin Sari( Part： Contributor, Isaiah Berlin: Liberty, Liberalism, and Anti-totalitarianism)

    Bloomsbury Academic  2020 ISBN: 9781350053281

    DOI

  • Philosophers Take on the World

    ( Part： Contributor, Stop Orientalism?)

    Oxford University Press  2016 ISBN: 9780198753728

  • 政治思想の知恵 : マキャベリからサンデルまで

    仲正, 昌樹( Part： Contributor, 「バーリン－多元主義と自由」)

    法律文化社  2013.02 ISBN: 9784589034793

  • 政治理論入門―方法とアプローチ

    デイヴィッド・レオポルド, マーク・スティアーズ( Part： Joint translator, 第10章 政治的に考えることと政治について考えること ―言語、解釈、イデオロギー（マイケル・フリーデン）)

    慶應義塾大学出版会  2011.07

  • Isaiah Berlin and Wolfson College

    Henry Hardy, Kei Hiruta, Jennifer Holmes( Part： Edit)

    2009

  • The Book of Isaiah: Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin

    Henry Hardy( Part： Contributor, Editing Berlin, Interpreting Berlin)

    Boydell & Brewer  2009 ISBN: 9781843838760

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Misc

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Syllabus

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Teaching Experience

  • Political Philosophy

    University of Oxford  

  • Political Thought

    University of Oxford  

  • Science, Ethics and Society

    University of Oxford  

  • Rethinking Disobedience

    University of Oxford  

  • History of Political and Economic Ideas

    Aarhus Universitey  

  • Racism and Anti-racism Seminars

    Aarhus University  

  • Social and Political Philosophy

    Aarhus University  

  • Global Intellectual History

    Aarhus University  

  • Theories of Freedom

    Aarhus University  

  • Advanced Topics in Political Philosophy

    Tokyo University of Foreign Studies  

  • Philosophy and Social Thought

    Tokyo University of Foreign Studies  

  • Politics and Society

    Tokyo University of Foreign Studies  

  • Basic Seminars

    Tokyo University of Foreign Studies  

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Social Activities

  • Senior Associate, Principia Advisory

    2021
    -
    Now

Academic Activities

Sub-affiliation

  • Faculty of Political Science and Economics   Graduate School of Political Science