In this final contribution to our volume I should like to do two things: first, to introduce a concept which seems to me an implied requirement of many of the arguments developed by our gathered authors; second, to briefly reflect upon what further lessons might be drawn from their chapters, especially once those chapters are viewed alongside each other, with common trends and patterns thereby coming to the fore. The two parts are relatively independent of each other, so readers who find themselves uninterested in the first should feel free to jump ahead to the section entitled ‘Further thoughts and assorted historical lessons’.

Relative value and the ranking problem

In our introduction to this volume, we pointed out that, judging from the contents of our collected chapters, what emerges more than anything else from consideration of the significance of history for political philosophy is the need to orientate work in our subject between, on the one hand, universalistic and contextualist positions on the nature of political morality, and, on the other, idealistic and pessimistic positions on the nature of political possibility.