How to Do Things with Normative Political Theories: The Performative Nature of Political Philosophy (original) (raw)
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The question of what role social and political practices should play in the justification of normative principles has received renewed attention in post-millennium political philosophy. Several current debates express dissatisfaction with the methodology adopted in mainstream political theory, taking the form of a criticism of so-called 'ideal theory' from 'non-ideal' theory, of 'practice-independent' theory from 'practice-dependent' theory, and of 'political moralism' from 'political realism'. While the problem of action-guidance lies at the heart of these concerns, the critics also share a number of methodological assumptions. Above all, their methodology is practice-dependent in the sense that an existing (social, political, or institutional) practice is assumed to put substantial limitations on the appropriate normative principles for regulating it. In other words, we cannot formulate and justify an appropriate principle without first understanding the practice (or its point and purpose) this principle is supposed to govern. The aim of this paper is to map out and analyze the common denominators of these debates with regard to methodological commitments. We will investigate how this practice-dependent method may be understood and motivated. In particular, we point to challenges that must be met in order for the position to remain both distinct and attractive.
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In this paper we attempt to find an answer to the question-how can we revisit political theory? This question may seem apparently simple, but the moment one start exploring, the incongruities and complexities of politics make the undertaking question highly toilsome. It is impossible to completely reject the normative framework in political analyses as far as it deals with the human society. On the other side, the age of post-truth politics also creates a difficulty to find out the objective facts and truth. So rather than arguing which method of politics is more efficient to deal with the uncertainties of human political life today, we attempt to visualize politics from a new understanding i.e., politics as absence of general agreement beyond excessive empiricism and extreme normativism. It is the antagonistic nature of human beings what keep 'the political' alive, and constitute the factual practices known as 'politics'.
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Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2019
In political theory concerned with normative evaluations and prescriptions facts can play two roles: (1) Facts can be of importance for the application of general normative principles to particular cases, and (2) facts can be of importance for the justification of normative principles as such. Political realists are critical of the first role, which they take to express a conception of political theory as ‘applied moral philosophy’. The paper investigates how interpretation of existing practices can be part of the second justificatory role, as suggested by proponents of different versions of contextualism and practice-dependence. The paper focuses on Andrea Sangiovanni’s methodological claims about social interpretation to illustrate both how facts can be part of the justification of principles and how interpretation is also faced with a number of problems as a way of justifying normative principles. The paper finally argues that some of these problems can be avoided if one considers the two roles together; what enables interpretation of facts as part of the justification of normative principles precisely is that application and justification are not separate exercises.
Changing Societies & Personalities, 2018
Jonathan Floyd holds a position of Senior lecturer in Political theory at the University of Bristol. In 2011, he co-edited (in collaboration with Marc Stears) a book Political Philosophy versus History. In this book, Floyd first proposed his original approach called normative behaviorism. The reviewed book in its turn is his first monograph and the most comprehensive statement of the approach. It is worth attention and careful reading for two reasons. First, it considers the deepest question of the discipline. Second, it is an exemplary work in analytic political philosophy. In this review, I will try to summarize main ideas presented in the book and explain, why, despite all its merits, it did not make a breakthrough in the field.
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Political realists’ rejection of the so-called ‘ethics first’ approach of political moralists (mainstream liberals), has raised concerns about their own source of normativity. Some realists have responded to such concerns by theorizing a distinctively political normativity. According to this view, politics is seen as an autonomous, independent domain with its own evaluative standards. Therefore, it is in this source, rather than in some moral values ‘outside’ of this domain, that normative justification should be sought when theorizing justice, democracy, political legitimacy, and the like. For realists the question about a distinctively political normativity is important, because they take the fact that politics is a distinct affair to have severe consequences for both how to approach the subject matter as such and for which principles and values can be justified. Still, realists have had a hard time clarifying what this distinctively political normativity consists of and why, more...
Being Realistic Without Realism. Feasibility and Efficacy in Normative Political Theories
Centro Einaudi, Laboratorio di politica comparata e filosofia pubblica, Working Paper-LPF n. 3, 2012
When we think that some normative political principles should be action-guiding, we assume that such principles should be in some way realizable in social reality. Political philosophers usually address this problem by requiring that what is prescribed by normative theories should be in some sense feasible. In this paper I claim that although the feasibility requirement accounts for some important dimensions concerning the general issue of realizability, in particular those revolving around the constraints posed by the world on the implementation of a normative theory, it does not cover all the issues at stake, in particular those concerning how such constraints may be overcome and how a normative theory can be put into practice. In this paper I shall propose to address this problem by appealing to the notion of efficacy. In ordinary language efficacy means the capacity to obtain the desired result. But given the impossibility of providing ex ante criteria to account for the practical success of the implementation of normative theories, I shall propose a minimal notion of efficacy, one based on the idea that the prevention of possible failures is a preliminary step and an indirect way to achieve practical success. I shall propose three criteria drawn from practical rationality to assess the plausibility of failure prevention strategies: 1. likelihood of the preconditions, 2. efficiency of the actions implementing the theory, 3. reliability of the normative plan. On the basis of these criteria an implementation plan is efficacious if it is parsimonious in assuming favourable preconditions (1), efficient in using resources (2), and capable of preventing possible unintended consequences (3). Finally, I show the theoretical and general interest of the idea of efficacy.
Political Realism and Normativism.docx
In one of its less brilliant and less truly critical performances Critical Theory has mostly regarded political realism as a four-letter word. I am not going to put on stage an apology of realism, but I think a conceptual clarification is preliminary to a serious discussion on its own as well as on idealism’s merits (§1). In the second section I shall start this comparative discussion, mainly focusing on the weaknesses of ‘normative political philosophy’. But it is only in the third and last section that I will be able to make my main point: I shall argue that the two terms are becoming obsolete not just for epistemological reasons, but rather because the structure of modern world of politics, which they wanted to interpret and regulate, is being transformed into a post-modern one.
A Sketch of a System of Theory and Practice (Political Studies Review, 2015)
Most political theorists are committed to one particular view about the relation between theory and practice. I argue that there are in fact four possible ways of relating theory and practice, which are distinguished in terms of the answers which are given to two distinct questions. I derive from this the suggestion that all political theorists can be classified according to whether they are sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic or choleric. The purpose of this sketch of a system is to indicate the questionable nature of much of what passes for modern political theory, especially that of the now dominant, sanguine, tradition which has for several decades especially concerned itself with the 'impact' theory can have on practice.