Partisan or Neutral?: The Futility of Public Political Theory

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (1997)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Partisan or Neutral? critically examines the Rawlsian ideal of a public, supposedly neutral, political theory meant to justify contemporary constitutional democracies. Placing this ideal-appealed to by neo-natural law theorists and advocates of "public theology" as well as by political theorists-against the background of the history of political liberalism, White shows its contradictory nature. He argues that any such legitimating theory will be 'partisan,' in the sense of appealing to convictions concerning the human good that will not be universally accepted. He concludes that all politics must be imperfect-a matter of pragmatism and prudence in forming the most workable compromises possible and in acquiescing, where our principles allow us to do so, in situations that are often far from optimal

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Medical futility: a cross-national study.Alireza Bagheri - 2013 - New Jersey: Imperial College Press.
Self-interest and public interest: The motivations of political actors.Michael C. Munger - 2011 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 23 (3):339-357.
Partisan or Neutral? [REVIEW]Amy R. Baehr - 2000 - Teaching Philosophy 23 (3):290-295.
The Impossibility of Political Neutrality.Noriaki Iwasa - 2010 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 10 (2):147-155.
Partisan or Neutral? [REVIEW]Alasdair MacIntyre - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3):731-734.
Is Secularism Neutral?Rex Ahdar - 2013 - Ratio Juris 26 (3):404-429.
A broader look at medical futility.Wayne Shelton - 1998 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 19 (4):383-400.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-02-06

Downloads
14 (#846,545)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

A feminist liberal approach to hate crime legislation.Amy R. Baehr - 2003 - Journal of Social Philosophy 34 (1):134–152.
Two Types of Liberal Perfectionism.Francesco Biondo - 2005 - Ratio Juris 18 (4):519-535.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references