John Tomasi of Brown University will deliver the March Bradley Lecture.

Friedrich Hayek was acutely aware of the fragility of free societies. He was convinced that the greatest threat to freedom in the West lay not only in socialism but in the ideal of social justice itself--what he called “the mirage of social justice.” But while Hayek was a staunch defender of limited government, he also saw a role for government in developing some safety nets through social programs. John Tomasi of Brown University will examine Hayek’s complex views on government involvement in social policy, explaining the seeming contradiction in Hayek’s thought and its relevance to today’s public policy debates.

John Tomasi is an associate professor of political science at Brown University and the director of the Political Theory Project at Brown. He is the author of Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2001) and numerous articles. Mr. Tomasi has had previous appointments at Princeton University and Stanford University. His specializations are political theory, ethics, and public policy.