This chapter is about the need for tethering, and more specifically about the practice of political philosophers over the last few decades of untethering political philosophy in particular from the rest of philosophy generally. Following John Rawls, the current practice often involves a rejection of what is called “comprehensive philosophy,” in favor of a self-contained domain of political theorizing. It is this untethering of political theory from philosophy generally to which we object and which we reject. The effort to avoid comprehensive philosophy has given political theory a false sense of independence and a false sense of practicability. There are a number of causes for these problems, but the two in particular that seem most important are: (1) the belief that doctrines or principles are separated or separable if there is not a direct and immediate implication among them; and (2) the apparent belief that consensus constitutes both justification and rationality. In the end, we shall see that certain sorts of comprehensiveness are not avoided, but simply taken for granted by political theorists—as for example, not only in the case of Rawls, but also Martha Nussbaum and, to a lesser degree, Amartya Sen. Another way of stating the last point is to say that political theories are in fact tethered, and the issues are whether a theorist recognizes these deeper ties and takes some responsibility for what is involved in recognizing them. In what follows, we shall try to indicate some of the reasons why we believe that “tethering” and some form of comprehensiveness is unavoidable, and that the current trend in political theorizing does not actually establish its own self-sufficiency. In the broadest sense, mainstream political theory is tethered to the framework of an ethics of respect and thus does not avoid its own bête noire of a controversial comprehensive framework. Perfectionism, as we present it here, has at least the advantage of keeping its tethered aspects out in the open for all to see, as will hopefully become evident as we move along.