Why do thinkers hostile or agnostic toward Christianity find in its apocalyptic doctrines—often seen as bizarre—appealing tools for interpreting politics? This article tackles that puzzle. First, i...

This essay examines the coherence of a Rawlsian non-minimalist approach to pursuing justice. Kim Angell argues that Rawlsian non-minimalism suffers from two ‘incoherence defects’. This paper argues, pace Angell, that non-minimalist principles can be both realizable and stable. First, Angell’s argument that political normalization necessarily leads to changes in the feasibility set, rendering principles unrealizable, begs the question. Second, the paper argues against Angell’s claim that habituation of principles necessarily leads to changes in the feasibility set. Whether habituation induces a (...) change to the feasibility set is contingent. This insight undermines the argument that non-minimalist principles of justice are inherently unstable. Since neither incoherence defect is successful, non-minimalism remains a viable methodological alternative. (shrink)

Although many accept the Rawlsian distinction between ‘end-state’ and ‘transitional’ principles, theorists disagree strongly over which feasibility constraint to use when selecting the former. While ‘minimalists’ favor a scientific-laws-only constraint, ‘non-minimalists’ believe that end-state principles should also be constrained by what people could (empirically) accept after reasoned discussion. I argue that a theorist who follows ‘non-minimalism’ will devise end-state principles that cannot be realized (as end-state principles), or cannot be stabilized (as end-state principles), or are indistinguishable in content from those (...) she would have selected had she followed ‘minimalism.’ The paper ends by outlining the implications of my analysis for the broader methodological map of political philosophy. (shrink)