JUSTICE, DEMOCRACY AND REASONABLE AGREEMENT

Sinopse

Farrelly critically assesses the main contemporary theories of justice, including liberal egalitarianism and right and left variants of libertarianism. He argues against the principled paradigm of ideal theory and champions instead a virtue-oriented theory of justice entitled 'civic liberalism'. Farrelly focuses on three civic virtues -toleration, civility and fairness - and applies the theory of civic liberalism to a number of applied topics, ranging from constitutional design and free speech to welfare reform and economic incentives. Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement is a plea for political philosophers to take seriously a range of non-ideal considerations such as scarcity, pervasive disadvantage, non-compliance, indeterminacy, disagreement and fallibility. This book helps bridge the gap between political philosophy and real politics.