Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to ‘li… - Michael Sandel

But if political philosophy is unrealizable in one sense, it is unavoidable in another.

Political philosophy seems often to reside at a distance from the world. Principles are one thing, politics another, and even our best efforts to live up to our ideals seldom fully succeed.

The advent of the new political economy marked a decisive moment in the demise of the republican strand of American politics and the rise of contemporary liberalism. According to this liberalism, gov­ernment should be neutral as to conceptions of the good life, in or­der to respect persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own ends. Keynesian fiscal policy both reflected this liberalism and deepened its hold on American public life. Although those who practiced Keynesian economics did not defend it in precisely these terms, the new political economy displayed two features of the liberalism that defines the procedural republic.

One of the failures of the well-credentialed, meritocratic elites who have governed for the past four decades is that they have not done very well at putting questions such as these at the heart of political debate. Now, as we find ourselves wondering whether democratic norms will survive, complaints about the hubris of meritocratic elites and the narrowness of their technocratic vision may seem trifling. But theirs was the politics that led to this moment, that produced the discontent that populist authoritarians exploit. Facing up to the failures of meritocracy and technocracy is an indispensable step toward addressing that discontent and reimagining a politics of the common good.

Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.