1,721,111 research outputs found
Virtuous Imbalance. Political Philosophy between Desirability and Feasibility
No full textThe book investigates and assesses different methodological strategies political philosophy can endorse in order to jointly meet its theoretical and practical commitments. More precisely, the book addressed three paradigmatic ways of conceiving political philosophy and its tasks, namely Rawls’s realistic utopianism, Machiavelli’s realism and Plato’s utopianism. The three models are explored with reference to a pattern of analysis based on the categories of desirability and feasibility. Desirability and feasibility are methodological criteria operating within political theories and orienting them in developing or justifying their normative claims, the former concerning the adequacy of principles and models, the latter regarding the practical possibility of enacting them. By comparatively evaluating the three selected models, the book enlightens their relative merits and limits, thus setting the ground for defining an appropriate methodological profile for political philosophy. To this end, the book distinguishes between political philosophy’s prescriptive and evaluative purposes, which imply different notions of normativity – a comparative notion the former, a transcendent one the latter – and diverse roles for feasibility constraints. Examining the requirements of practical relevance connected to prescriptive principles and to evaluative standards, the book suggests that prescription is better served by realism, while evaluation better fits utopianism. Moreover, the book proposes a revised model of realistic utopianism, which avoids the shortfalls detected in Rawls’s original formulation and which can enable political philosophy to play a proper public role, without dismissing its theoretical commitments. The book indeed contends that political philosophy can perform a properly normative function only if it preserves its philosophical character and if it does not abandon its theoretical ambitions
Gerald A. Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice and Other Essays in Political Philosophy
No full textJuha Räikkä : Social Justice in Practice : Questions in Ethics and Political Philosophy
No full textUna trappola per filosofi politici : Rawls e la praticità
No full textL’articolo si concentra sul modo in cui Rawls concepisce la filosofia politica e i suoi compiti, con l’intento di evidenziare le implicazioni associate ai principali assunti metateorici e metodologici che contraddistinguono il progetto rawlsiano. In particolare, l’articolo esamina le condizioni che soluzioni normative devono soddisfare per essere praticamente rilevanti e rispondere in modo adeguato alle specifiche finalità che Rawls attribuisce alla filosofia politica. L’articolo prende inoltre in esame la particolare strategia metodologica che Rawls ritiene adeguata in vista di simili finalità e suggerisce che l’approccio rawlsiano tende a ridimensionare in modo poco convincente le ambizioni teoriche e normative della filosofia politica in vista di migliorarne la resa pratica, rischiando così di mettere la filosofia politica nella condizione di non poter adeguatamente rivendicare la correttezza delle proprie tesi.The article focuses on Rawls’s way of understanding political philosophy and its tasks, with a view to highlight the main meta-theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying the Rawlsian project and their implications. More precisely, on the one hand, the article examines the conditions normative proposals must meet in order to be practically relevant and to fulfill the specific purposes Rawls envisages for political philosophy. On the other hand, the article addresses the methodological strategy endorsed by Rawls and it suggests that his approach tends to downplay the theoretical and normative ambitions of political philosophy for the sake of improving its practical performance. The article contends that such an approach risks undermining the possibility for political philosophy to appropriately vindicate the correctness of its theses
Potere emendativo, popolo transgenerazionale e agency politica
Full text linkThe article focuses on the principle of vertical reciprocity proposed by Alessandro Ferrara to regulate the exercise of amending power. The principle is integral to the theory of democratic sovereignty and constitutional power developed by Ferrara in Sovereignty Across Generations: Constituent Power and Political Liberalism. In the book, Ferrara elaborates on Rawls’s insights and updates political liberalism to make it more suitable for addressing contemporary tendencies and phenomena, particularly populism. From Ferrara’s perspective, populism improperly reduces the will of the people to the will of its living segment – namely, the electorate – so he emphasizes the need to distinguish the electorate from the people, and he defends a sequential account of sovereignty according to which past, present, and future generations are all co-owners of the constitution. Therefore, the electorate is not entitled to unilaterally modify the constitution, and the principle of vertical reciprocity grants legitimacy only to constitutional amendments that, although proposed by the electorate and expressing the electorate’s own will, could prove acceptable also to past and present generations. As the article suggests, the principle tends to constrain the political agency of the electorate, which is bound to preserve the political project inscribed in the constitution by the founding generation. Though possibly problematic, this implication seems perfectly consistent with – and fully vindicated within – Ferrara’s general approach. Therefore, to assess more reliably the principle of vertical reciprocity and its import, the article examines its presuppositions. More precisely, the article discusses Ferrara’s defence of the sequential model of sovereignty, his understanding of the constitution as
the expression of the will of the people, and his conception of the latter as irreducible to the will of any single generation composing the people itself. Based on such investigation, the article highlights the merits and the shortcomings of Ferrara’s approach and questions whether, while certainly coherent with political liberalism, his proposal is fully effective in countering populism
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