What Image for Moral and Political Philosophy?

Wilfred Sellars made a distinction between what he called the “manifest” and “scientific” image. We can think of the manifest image as the everyday ontology of human beings. What people think exists; how people view world around them. The scientific image is what science tells us exists, which is often quite different from the manifest image. Sellars argued both images are legitimate ways of viewing the world. While most academic disciplines are conducted in the scientific image, they often begin from the manifest image. Social science has often had an uncertain place, where some aspects are written in the manifest image and some in the scientific image. In this paper I argue that while the scientific image can inform practice of moral philosophy, its content is that of the manifest image. On the other hand, while the manifest image must inform political philosophy, because is a moralized activity, it should be conducted more in the scientific image. Thus, I argue for a new distinction to be made between the practice of between moral and political philosophy, and one which bears on previous discussion of ideal and non-ideal theory; moralism and realism; and relationship between “ought and can” and the feasibility question in political philosophy.