Dominique Schnapper ,L'utopia repubblicana: Comment

Setting social goals and exploring a coherent system for their attainment is a distinctive feature of utopian thinking. However, it is important to emphasize that utopian reasoning in the social sphere is not only about goal setting but also about goal implementing in the concrete organisation and functioning of the socioeconomic system.. The distinction between goal setting and goal implementing makes dissatisfaction a constitutive feature of utopian reasoning. This paper addresses the relationship between goal setting and goal implementing by taking stock of Bruno de Finetti's distinction between technical judgement and economic judgement and discussing the separation between: (i) the task to «translate in precise form the goals initially expressed in a more or less vague and indeterminate form, [...] assess their internal coherence, and [...] suggest, if necessary, how to modify or change them» (de Finetti, 1973, p. 15), and (ii) the tasks to «delineate forms of social organisation meant to lead to the desired situations, by investigating and comparing their attitude to function in a simple and effective way, and with a tendency to stability» (de Finetti, 1973, p. 15).