Principles of Politics

"This book presents the rational choice theories of collective action and social choice, applying them to problems of public policy and social justice"-- "Claims of knowledge and of 'principles' regarding political matters, both empirical and moral, have been made over the millennia but never without contention. This book is about some of the empirical and moral generalizations arrived at in what might be called the new political science. The book deals with the findings directly, and how one goes about justifying such claims. It reveals how the quality of the justification determines the quality of the claims. The principle foundations used to develop the arguments or justification are those of rational choice and social justice theories. But given the diversity of claims within the well reasoned philosophical traditions, we need more than reason to establish (or for that matter, except in cases of contradiction, disestablish) claims of knowledge about politics. Empirical findings, especially from experiments, are brought in to evaluate the validity of the claims. The principles discussed improve our understanding of concepts such as social welfare, collective action, altruism, other-regardingness, distributive justice, group interest, and more. The methods employed help us understand what is universal to all of politics. This volume zeros in on these universals with an eye to both the empirical problems of political behavior and some of the normative conundrums such as what constitutes social justice. It identifies some of the main candidates for principles in both categories, and helps the reader to understand how to justify any such candidate"--