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  1. Prescribing Institutions Without Ideal Theory.David Wiens - 2011 - Journal of Political Philosophy 20 (1):45-70.
    It is conventional wisdom among political philosophers that ideal principles of justice must guide our attempts to design institutions to avert actual injustice. Call this the ideal guidance approach. I argue that this view is misguided— ideal principles of justice are not appropriate "guiding principles" that actual institutions must aim to realize, even if only approximately. Fortunately, the conventional wisdom is also avoidable. In this paper, I develop an alternative approach to institutional design, which I call institutional failure analysis. The (...)
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  • Philosophy as a humanistic discipline.Bernard Williams - 2000 - Philosophy 75 (4):477-496.
    What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline , Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy "something that counts as getting it right." Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the book amply demonstrates why Williams was one (...)
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  • A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
    Previous edition, 1st, published in 1971.
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  • Why Even Morally Perfect People Would Need Government*: GREGORY S. KAVKA.Gregory Kavka - 1995 - Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (1):1-18.
    Why do we need government? A common view is that government is necessary to constrain people's conduct toward one another, because people are not sufficiently virtuous to exercise the requisite degree of control on their own. This view was expressed perspicuously, and artfully, by liberal thinker James Madison, in The Federalist, number 51, where he wrote: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Madison's idea is shared by writers ranging across the political spectrum. It finds clear expression in (...)
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  • (2 other versions)A Theory of Justice.John Rawls - unknown
    Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book. Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition--justice as fairness--and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the (...)
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  • Rescuing Justice and Equality.G. A. Cohen (ed.) - 2008 - Harvard University Press.
    In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, peopleâes material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawlsâes theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not only for the state (...)
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  • Where Should We Expect Social Change in Non-Ideal Theory?Burke A. Hendrix - 2013 - Political Theory 41 (1):116-143.
    This essay considers the relationship between ideal theory and non-ideal theory. It begins with Rawls’s conception of ideal theory and A. John Simmons’s articulation of non-ideal theory. Both defend the priority of ideal theory over non-ideal theory. The essay then considers three different conceptions of the social barriers standing in the way of an ideal society, taken broadly from Mill, Marx, and Foucault. Each conception of power suggests a divergent strategy for pursuing non-ideal theory. The Foucauldian conception also suggests reasons (...)
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  • Realism in political theory.William A. Galston - 2010 - European Journal of Political Theory 9 (4):385-411.
    In recent decades, a ‘realist’ alternative to ideal theories of politics has slowly taken shape. Bringing together philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists, this countermovement seeks to reframe inquiry into politics and political norms. Among the hallmarks of this endeavor are a moral psychology that includes the passions and emotions; a robust conception of political possibility and rejection of utopian thinking; the belief that political conflict — of values as well as interests — is both fundamental and ineradicable; a focus (...)
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  • Thirteen. Truth, Politics, And Self-Deception.BernardHG Williams - 2005 - In In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument. Princeton University Press. pp. 154-164.
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  • Would pluralist angels (really) need government?Eric M. Cave - 1996 - Philosophical Studies 81 (2-3):227 - 246.
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  • Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework.David Estlund - 2008 - Critica 42 (124):118-125.
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