To date there is no systematic exploration of the concept of ‘political feasibility’. We believe that feasibility is a central issue for political philosophy, conceptually as well as practically, and that it has been given background status for far too long. Roughly, a state of affairs is feasible if it is one we could actually bring about. But there are many questions to ask about the conditions under which we are justified in thinking that we could bring about a political state of affairs. In this article we bring together several aspects of the concept of feasibility defended in the literature thus far, and build upon them to give an analysis of the notion of political feasibility. We suggest that the notion involves a relation between agents and the pursuit of certain actions and outcomes in certain historical contexts, and that there are two important roles for feasibility to play in political theory, corresponding to two feasibility ‘tests’: one categorical, the other comparative. We show how the tests operate in the assessment of three different levels of a normative political theory: core normative principles, their institutional implementation and the political reforms leading to them. Focusing on the third level, which has received the least attention in the literature, we proceed to explain how feasibility considerations interact with desirability and epistemic considerations in the articulation of normative political judgments.
Why does workplace gender diversity matter? Here, we provide a review of the literature on both justice-based and organizational benefits of workplace gender diversity that, importantly, is informed by evidence regarding sex differences and their relationship with vocational behavior and outcomes. This review indicates that the sexes are neither distinctly different, nor so similar as to be fungible. Justice-based gains of workplace gender diversity include that it may cause less sex discrimination and may combat androcentrism in products and services. We then consider potential instrumental benefits of workplace gender diversity to organizations, including for team and firm performance, innovation, occupational well-being, and corporate governance. The evidence of positive association is currently strongest for occupational well-being and governance. We recommend that policy makers ground gender diversity initiatives in this comprehensive and evidence-based understanding of the benefits of workplace gender diversity.
The objective of this paper is to explain why certain authors -both popular and academic -are making a mistake when they attribute obligations to uncoordinated groups of persons, and to argue that it is particularly unhelpful to make this mistake given the prevalence of individuals faced with the difficult question of what morality requires of them in a situation in which there is a good they can bring about together with others, but not alone. I will defend two alternatives to attributing obligations to uncoordinated groups. The first solution has us build better people, who will coordinate their actions willingly and spontaneously when the occasion arises. The second solution has us build better groups, so that when the occasion arises, there is a framework in place for coordinating members into action.
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