Steve Brams’ Presidential Address encourages efforts ‘‘to propose and to try to
implement reforms that we deem desirable’’. The key in reading his call should be on ‘‘we
deem desirable’’. Where is that desirability coming from? Based on what? Whether one
likes it or not, or is prepared or not, we are entering here into deep normative territory.
Desirability comes from an underlying vision. Any systematic effort to offer practical
alternatives has to be rooted in a normative vision. One has a choice: to articulate that
vision and try to strengthen it with feasibility and consistency arguments or leave it
implicit and tacit.