Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract

This book features emerging and established philosophers revisiting Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract twenty-five years after its publication. Each contribution reassesses the singular book’s bold critique of liberalism and social contract theory, advancing and interrogating Mills’s philosophical legacy. Notably lines of inquiry include the ideal/nonideal distinction, the merits of the social contract model for normative political inquiry, and the epistemology of ignorance.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Elvira Basevich is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis, USA. Her research focuses on how historical experiences should inform philosophical methods for defining normative concepts, such as freedom and justice.