Ethics@noon: Susan Neiman (Director, Einstein Forum / Berlin) "Understanding Idealism"

Words like realistic and idealistic are used so glibly in contemporary political discussion that philosophers are more likely to wince or groan than to take them seriously. But the fact that a use is careless doesn't make it insignificant. The casual use of ideas with which philosophers have wrestled for millenia affects our political landscape. Examining them is not a question of political philosophy, but of a metaphysics strong enough to support a moral standpoint - in particular, the fact that we act, and want to see ourselves as acting, on moral grounds. This talk will discuss the difference between realism and idealism in politics generally, with particular attention to the recent consensus that the lesson of the Iraq War is that foreign policy should be more realistic.