Political realism meets civic republicanism

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 20 (3):331-347 (2017)
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Abstract

The paper offers five desiderata on a realist normative theory of politics: that it should avoid moralism, deontologism, transcendentalism, utopianism, and vanguardism. These desiderata argue for a theory that begins from values rooted in a people’s experience; that avoids prescribing a collective deontological constraint; that makes the comparison of imperfect regimes possible; that takes feasibility and sustainability into account; and that makes room for the claims of democracy. The paper argues, in the course of exploring the desiderata, that a neo-republican philosophy of government does pretty well in satisfying them.

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Philip Pettit
Australian National University

Citations of this work

Freedom and its unavoidable trade‐off.Lars J. K. Moen - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (1):22–36.
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Republican Freedom and Liberal Neutrality.Lars Moen - 2023 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 26 (2):325–348.
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References found in this work

An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.Adam Smith - 1976 - Oxford University Press. Edited by R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner & W. B. Todd.
The idea of justice.Amartya Sen - 2009 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

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