ABSTRACT
To begin to explore the possibility of political creativity, this chapter distinguishes the political from simple interpersonal morality. Morality, as it is typically presented in contemporary philosophy, is concerned with small-bore phenomena: personal virtues and one-off interpersonal interactions, while the political, on the other hand, is concerned with the structural, the social, and the systemic. Since structural phenomena are social, they are constituted by more than mere one-off interpersonal interactions. Contrast this with Trolley problems and "Terror Bomber" versus "Strategic Bomber" cases. These thought experiments are quintessentially part of the practice of moral theory. The chapter discusses four categories: the political concept, the political practice, the practical understandings of that practice, and the popular understandings of the practice. To illustrate these categories, it considers the case of human rights: The concept of human rights is the concept of the basic rights someone has in virtue of being human.
