Political Utopias Contemporary Debates

Kevin Vallier is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, whose research focuses in political philosophy, normative ethics, political economy, and philosophy of religion. Vallier is the author of Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation (Routledge, 2014) and Must Politics Be War? In Defense of Public Reason Liberalism, forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

Michael Weber is Professor of Philosophy, and Department Chair, at Bowling Green State University. He has published on a wide variety of topics in ethics and political philosophy, including rational choice theory, ethics and the emotions, and egalitarianism. He has also co-edited with Christian Coons three edited volumes on topics in applied ethics: Paternalism (Cambridge University Press), Manipulation (Oxford University Press), and The Ethics of Self-Defense (Oxford University Press).

List of Contributors

Introduction
Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber

1. On the Messy "Utopophobia vs Factophobia" Controversy: A Systematization and Assessment
Laura Valentini

2. Prime Justice
David Estlund

3. Can Non-Ideal Theories of Justice Guide Action?
Robert Talisse

4. Why Public Reasoning Involves Ideal Theorizing
Blain Neufeld

5. Justice and Feasibility: A Dynamic Approach
Pablo Gilabert

6. Political Functionalism and the Importance of Social Facts
Alex Guerrero

7. Will the Real Principles of Justice Please Stand Up?
David Wiens

8. Searching for the Ideal: The Fundamental Diversity Dilemma
Gerald Gaus and Keith Hankins

9. The Need for Non-Ideal Theory: A Case Study in Deliberative Democracy
Danielle Wenner

10. When is Non-Ideal Theory too Ideal? Adaptive Preferences, Children, and Ideal Theory
Rosa Terlazzo