Political Utopias

Contemporary Debates

Bibliographic Data

ID20004662
EditorsMichael Weber (0000-0002-6467-0252), Kevin Vallier (0000-0001-9407-6716)
Year2017
Pages260
Publication date2017-04-19
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenuePolitical utopias (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190280598.001.0001
OpenAlexW2606790052
Open LibraryOL27232093M
ISBN9780190280598
LanguageEN
Citations received4

Political theory, from antiquity to the present, has been divided on the relationship between the requirements of justice and the limitations of persons and institutions to meet those requirements. Some theorists hold that a theory of justice should be utopian or idealistic—that the derivation of the correct principles of justice should not take into account human and institutional limitations. Others insist on a realist or non-utopian view, according to which feasibility—facts about what is possible given human and institutional limitations—is a constraint on principles of justice. In recent years, the relationship between the real and the ideal has become the subject of renewed scholarly interest. This anthology aims to represent the contemporary state of this classic debate. By and large, contributors to the volume deny that the choice between realism and idealism is binary. Rather, there is a continuum between realism and idealism that locates these extremes of each view at opposite poles. The contributors, therefore, tend to occupy some middle positions, only leaning in the ideal or non-ideal direction. Together, their contributions not only represent a wide array of attractive positions in the new literature on the topic, but also collectively serve to advance how one should understand the contrast between idealism and realism itself

Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Justice (Philosophy)

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