Self-Realization : Politics & the Good Life in Modern Times

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.