Self-Realization

This book elaborates a plausible and attractive conception of 'self-realisation' as an ideal of how one might live well by developing one's talents and capacities, which is suitable for the modern age. This ideal is a valid concern for modern political theory in that it can contribute to how we can encourage our social and political institutions. It explains that the contention of self-realisation is a fitting concern for 'modern times', yet seeking a secularised conception, removing the monopoly certain Eastern philosophies seem to have adopted. The author demonstrates that utopian ethical and political thinking has value in enriching our imaginations, is not on a slippery slope towards a dangerously totalitarian 'engineering of the soul' and can be used to inspire incremental changes to existing institutions and practices in a robustly 'down-to-earth' conception of the politically feasible.

Details 'self-realisation' as an ideal of how one might live well by developing one's talents and capacities. This book demonstrates that utopian ethical and political thinking has value in enriching our imaginations and can be used to inspire incremental changes to institutions and practices.

Theorising Self-Realisation in Modernity; Aristotle: Self-Realisation and Virtue-Ethics; Mill: Self-Realisation in Modernity; Marx: Self-Realisation Through Labour; Some Problems in Self-Realisationist Political Theory: A Critique of Communism; Self-Realisation: A Perfectionist Ethic for Modern Politics.