Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book invokes diverse moral grounds to defend social democracy, a system of domestic governance that combines capitalism with extensive government intervention to reduce social and economic inequality. Avoiding common but simplistic arguments for a political program of promoting the general welfare, the book vindicates that program by climbing an argumentative ladder whose rungs are independently defensible dictates of political morality. Along the way the book creatively adapts influential ideas within political philosophy (like Rawls’s “original position” thought experiment) while also forging new philosophical ground in the defense of social democratic ideals and institutions. In particular, the book clarifies, defends, and employs the ideals of impartial political concern, non-exploitation, democratic equality and respectful political collaboration, and the mitigation of the external harms of otherwise legitimate (and even praiseworthy) capitalist self-advancement. The book concludes with a chapter that explores the ethics of social democracy in the areas of foreign aid, climate change, international commerce, and immigration.</jats:p>