A Ph.D. doesn’t guarantee a conscience. In “The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics,” University of Chicago professor Mark Lilla examines the defense of totalitarianism by what he calls “the philotyrannical intellectual.” One of his subjects is the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984), who taught at the Collège de France and the University of California at Berkeley. Foucault was a member of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1953 and later associated with Maoist groups. In September 1978, he went to Iran to report on the uprising against Shah Reza Pahlavi. Foucault defended the Shah’s theocratic opponents as part of a...