Partisan or Neutral?: The Futility of Public Political Theory

Michael White

doi:10.5771/9781461705109

Summary

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.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/1997
Copyright Year: 1997
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8476-8453-3
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4617-0510-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 195
Product Type: Monograph

1. Table of Contents No access
2. 1. Notes to Preface No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. The Reformation: Sociopolitical Disaster or Felix Culpa? No access
2. Classical Liberalism: Justifying Compromises No access
3. The Skeptical Beast: Noire ou Belle? No access
4. Stopping History and the Search for a Tertium Quid No access
5. Prudential Accommodation versus Public Justification No access
6. Notes to Chapter 1 No access
1. Hobbes's Impatience: The Replacement of Distributive by Commutative Justice No access
2. Locke's Ambivalence: Principle or Prudence? No access
3. Why not Egalitarianism as a Prudential Modus Vivendi? No access
4. But aren't We, in Fact, All Equal? No access
5. Liberalism's Best Bet? No access
6. Notes to Chapter 2 No access
1. To Justify or to Stabilize? No access
2. "Come now, and Let us Reason Together, Saith the Lord" (Is. 1:18) No access
3. Liberal versus Non-Liberal Niceness: Tolerance and Civility No access
4. Notes to Chapter 3 No access
1. Lex Naturalis Redux: Neo-Natural-Law Theory and Liberalism No access
2. Religion as a Basic form of Human Good? No access
3. Complete Communities, Public Squares, and Civic Souls No access
4. The Politics of Imperfection No access
5. Notes to Chapter 4 No access
1. Notes to Epilogue No access
Index No access Pages 183 - 194
About the Author No access Pages 195 - 195