Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes this pattern. He describes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power the constrained vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the unconstrained vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. iA Conflict of Visionsi offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.