One reason the political theory of Plato's Republic is widely misunderstood is that its precise relationship to the political content of the early dialogues is not generally recognized. That the political views of the Republic are frequently misconstrued seems apparent. In recent years many scholars have argued that the ideal state put forward in the work is completely “utopian.” This word is used in different senses, but the sense I will concentrate on in this paper is its bearing upon questions of political reform. As I use the term, a “utopian” political theory contains proposals that are not intended to be taken seriously in terms of political reform. When I say that the ideal state discussed in the Republic is not “utopian” as these scholars maintain, I mean that Plato designed it with political reform in mind, and that he thought seriously about how to bring it into existence. This does not, however, imply that the ideal state is likely to be realized, or that Plato ever thought it was, but only that Plato wished to bring it into existence and thought this was possible, should extraordinary good fortune bring the necessary conditions into existence.

Considerable controversy in recent decades has centered on the question of why the philosopher in Plato's Republic would condescend to participate in politics. The traditional view is that philosophers rule from a general obligation to the city in which they live, a specific duty to the kallipolis which educated them or an acknowledgement of “the rule of reason as the primary and natural imperative.” However, if the ultimate happiness of the philosopher consists in a contemplative life divorced from politics, then the justice of the city which demands that philosophers rule conflicts with the psychic harmony of the individual philosopher. The analogy between justice in the state and in the individual soul breaks down as justice in the state demands functions of the philosopher for which he has no inclination or expertise. The just rule of reason is possible for individuals but impossible for states, unless philosophers can be required to meet their obligation to rule.

Adam Ferguson was one of several moral philosophers who contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment, a period aptly described as one of “remarkable efflorescence.” The works of Ferguson and his fellow Scotsmen — Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Lord Kames, Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid — were widely distributed, seriously read, and vigorously debated during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The greatest contribution of this Scottish school to the history of political thinking was the refinement of the idea of commercial republicanism, the synthesis of modern notions of polity and economy.

In recent years there has been a surprising turn in the discussions by moral philosophers, political theorists, jurisprudents, and economic theorists, or at least those economic theorists concerned with distribution. After years of treating justice as a value and, therefore, not an object for scientific investigation, it has become necessary to grapple once again with widely argued and mainstream claims that it is possible to articulate and defend, on the basis of reason, a substantive concept of justice with major consequences for politics, constitutional and statutory law, as well as public policy.

In the decade spanning 1968 to 1978, the Supreme Court cited the concept of the “new property” in over forty cases concerning the rights of clients in public sector relationships. The term new property first appeared in two law review articles written by Charles Reich in 1964 and 1965, and its primary points have since found favor with a number of political theorists. At the heart of the “new property” idea was the belief that a great many public sector benefits performed traditional functions of property and, therefore, ought to have been redefined as property in the law. Accordingly, Reich argued that public sector grants, including public assistance as well as unemployment compensation and Social Security, should lose their legal status as gratuities or charitable gifts and become instead “property” with all of the constitutional guarantees of due process that adhere to property in our system. This was a most egalitarian project indeed, with implications that went far beyond extending rights of due process. By transforming all men and women into property owners regardless of their private assets, the “new property” paved the way for a political vocabulary which wedded the particular and exclusive language of property with the universal, all-inclusive language of egalitarianism. In most respects this redefinition simply would have expanded the egalitarian direction implicit in past liberal functionalist theories of property, developments which many had already approved.

As the originator of the term, “survival of the fittest,” Herbert Spencer has come to symbolize the harsh excesses of the liberal state. This unflattering portrait emanates from two sources. First, Spencer's political ideas read like a handbook for doctrinaire libertarians: maximum liberty for the individual, unrestrained pursuit of self-interest, and minimum governmental interference. Second, Spencer's theory of social evolution in his eyes grants his political ideas scientific validity, but it also presents those ideas in a most inhumane and anticommunitarian light. And yet, in an obscure editorial in the Times, this apologist for only the “most fit” of evolutionary forms writes of the “horribly cruel practice of boiling lobsters alive.” Suggesting a more humane method of killing these primitive creatures, Spencer concludes true to form that “legislative coercion is not needful to enforce adoption of this method.” Rather, consumers of lobster should form a voluntary organization aimed at boycotting lobsters not treated according to his humanitarian proposal.