Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates

by Michael Weber (Editor), Kevin Vallier (Editor)

Political theory, from antiquity to the present, has been divided over 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 ideal and the real 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 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 advance how we understand the difference between idealism and realism itself.

272 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2017

About the author

Michael Weber teaches high school-level history, writing, and film in Wales, Wisconsin. An avid believer in the power of storytelling, Michael emphasizes the importance of students becoming the protagonists of their own tales. When not writing fiction or drawing accompanying artwork, Michael is busy being a husband, dad, beekeeper, and chicken wrangler. Visit Michael on his Instagram page @mr.weberdoesstuff