Toward a tolerable Platonism

The following question drives my discussion: can political philosophy and its account of democracy be contained in Riker’s dichotomy between liberalism and populism? To put the matter more provocatively, and to emphasize the main interest that drives this paper: should political philosophy give up to populism? The question aims to engage social choice theory on shared terrain (the passage from individual preferences to collective decision; the connection between method and ideal; the confrontation between market and democracy). The mathematic language in which social choice theory formulates its assessments should not prevent political philosophy from recognising the importance of this account of politics and democracy, and from confronting the controversies that the social choice analysis reveals. Rawls’s program itself might be regarded as an outcome of this confront.