Idealism

The term idealism refers to any philosophical system or thesis that emphasizes the mental (idea) or the notion of very high or preeminent value (ideal). Because minds evaluate, it is possible to imagine a deep relationship between these two very different criteria. There are some connections, but clarity demands that they be understood separately. Only the emphasis on the mental yields a distinctly idealist conception of time.

When emphasizing value, ideal, idealistic, and idealize serve many functions. For example, norms and goals are often called ideals. On that basis, some moral attitudes such as optimism, commitment, and cheerfulness are deemed idealism, as in “the idealism of youth.” Similarly, in international relations, idealism refers to a policy or posture obligating a state to promote higher aims among nations, such as peace, justice, cooperation, open borders, or democracy, while practical idealism refers to a position between that kind of idealism and what is known as realism, which refers to a state's selfishness in international affairs.

A second line of usage takes off from the fact that whatever would fully satisfy a desire is called ideal. Hence, in aesthetics, idealism has to do with representing things as we would like them to be (idealized) rather than as they are. with a little pejorative shading here, idealist calls out a vice. Thus, in ethics, the idealist is one whose standards are unrealistically high, or who is too confident about the virtue of a person or line of action, or perhaps altruistic to a fault. A system of ethics might be called idealistic if it sacrifices too much for the sake of a particular principle; or if it elevates any aspect of moral life too high, for example, sympathy at the expense of autonomy, but especially the spiritual or rational at the expense of the sensual or immediate; or if it believes too much in the goodness, or perfectibility, of human nature; or if it overestimates the moral efficacy of a line of causation, such as instruction, role models, prayer, meditation, sobriety, free markets, self-denial, the individual, the mass, the ego, the id, or rationality. Slightly more pejorative shading renders the idealist an idle dreamer of Utopias, or an impractical adherent of some perfect, best, or ultimate in some domain. At the deepest levels of pejoration, ideal gives way to idea, in the sense of imaginary, and the idealist is primarily a fantasist.