Searching for the Ideal

Datos Bibliográficos

ID23213732
AutoresGerald Gaus, Keith Hankins (0000-0002-3726-7636)
Año2017
Páginas175-202
Fecha de publicación2017-04-27
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoCHAPTER
RevistaPolitical utopias (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190280598.003.0009
OpenAlexW2607023863
ISBN9780190280598
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9

Diversity and disagreement have historically been thought to be obstacles that theories of justice must accommodate. Recently, however, many democratic theorists have begun to think of diversity as something to be celebrated. This paper argues that the new champions of diversity are right, but only to a point. They are right because certain sorts of diversity, namely diversity of the sort that manifests itself in disagreement over how similar (or far away) various states of affairs are, improve people's chances of identifying and moving to better states of affairs. Unfortunately, however, the same considerations that give people reason to think that embracing diversity improves their chances of identifying better states of affairs also give them reason to think that they will inevitably disagree about which states of affairs are best. Diversity is thus both a curse and a blessing.

Blessing · Curse · Democracy · Diversity (politics) · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics) · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics