Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World: The Priority of Morality and the Autonomy of the Political (original) (raw)
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The Logic of Legitimacy: Ethics in Political Realism
The Review of Politics 75/3, pp. 407-432., 2013
The article examines the recent debate on a genuinely realist perspective in political philosophy and argues that the core idea of realism is a certain type of ethical theory. In spite of the notorious polemic against “moralism” in politics that is characteristic of realist thinkers since Machiavelli, political realism as put forth in the current debate is not to be understood as a strictly fact-oriented perspective on politics, but rather as a perspective that itself is founded on a theory of political ethics. This peculiarly realist theory of political ethics can be characterized by its focus on the theoretical importance of political application problems, by a genuine priority principle underlying its understanding of political ethics, by its distinctive understanding of the concept of legitimacy and, finally, by its claim that any form of ethics, as far as it is concerned with political questions, is necessarily ambivalent in character.
Social Theory and Practice
This paper examines the differences between moralist, realist, and pragmatist approaches to political legitimacy by articulating their largely implicit views of judgment. Three claims are advanced. First, the salient opposition among approaches to legitimacy is not between "moralism" and "realism." Recent realist proposals for rethinking legitimacy share with moralist views a distinctive form, called "normativism": a quest for knowledge of principles that solve the question of legitimacy. This assumes that judging legitimacy is a matter of applying such principles to a case at hand. Second, neither Rawls nor Habermas is a normativist about political legitimacy. The principles of legitimacy they proffer claim to express rather than adjudicate the legitimacy of a liberal-democratic regime, and thus cannot solve the question of legitimacy at a fundamental level. But perhaps we should question the normativist aspiration to theoretically resolving the problem to begin with. My third claim is that a "pragmatist" approach enables us to rethink political legitimacy more deeply by shifting focus from the articulation of principles to the activity of judging. Implicit in Rawls and Habermas's theories I then find clues towards an alternative account of judgment, in which the question of legitimacy calls not for theoretical resolution but for ongoing practical engagement.
Legitimacy in Realist Thought: Between Moralism and Realpolitik
Political Theory, 42:3 (2014)
What, if anything, can realism say about the normative conditions of political legitimacy? Must a realist political theory accept that the ability to successfully employ coercive power in order to ensure compliance is equivalent to the right to rule, or can it incorporate normative criteria for legitimacy but without collapsing into a form of moralism? While critics argue that realism fails to adequately differentiate itself from moralism or that it cannot coherently appeal to normative values so as to distinguish might from right, this paper seeks to help develop a realist account of legitimacy by showing how it can successfully and stably occupy this position between moralism and Realpolitik. Through this discussion, however, the paper also argues that political rule necessitates the use of coercive power which is (at best) imperfectly legitimated, and that this blurs the distinction between politics and successful domination which lies at the heart of many recent accounts of political realism. In at least this sense, realism retains important and underacknowledged affinities to Realpolitik.
Distinctively Political Normativity in Political Realism: Unattractive or Redundant
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2021
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...
Realism in Normative Political Theory
Philosophy Compass, 2014
This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political, and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the relationship of ethics to politics, from the priority of legitimacy over justice, and from the nature of political judgment. Next, we ask to what extent realism is a methodological approach as opposed to a substantive political position, and so discuss the relationship between realism and a few such positions. We close by pointing out the links between contemporary realism and the realist strand that runs through much of the history of Western political thought.
Realism Against Legitimacy: For a Radical, Action-Oriented Political Realism
Social Theory and Practice, 2022
This article challenges the association between realist methodology and ideals of legitimacy. Many who seek a more "realistic" or "political" approach to political theory replace the familiar orientation towards a state of (perfect) justice with a structurally similar orientation towards a state of (sufficient) legitimacy. As a result, they fail to provide more reliable practical guidance, and wrongly displace radical demands. Rather than orienting action towards any state of affairs, I suggest that a more practically useful approach to political theory would directly address judgments, by comparing the concrete possibilities for action faced by real political actors.
Ethics, morality and the case for realist political theory
A common trait of all realistic political theories is the rejection of a conception of political theory as applied moral philosophy and an attempt to preserve some form of distinctively political thinking. Yet the reasons for favouring such an account of political theory can vary, a point that has often been overlooked in recent discussions by realism's friends and critics alike. While a picture of realism as first-and-foremost an attempt to develop a more practical political theory which does not reduce morality to politics is often cited, in this paper we present an alternative understanding in which the motivation to embrace realism is grounded in a set of critiques of or attitudes towards moral philosophy which then feed into a series of political positions. Political realism, in this account, is driven by a set of philosophical concerns about the nature of ethics and the place of ethical thinking in our lives. We argue that this impulse is precisely what motivated Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss to their versions of distinctively realist political thought. This is important to emphasise, we argue, as it demonstrates that realism does not set politics against ethics (a misunderstanding typically endorsed by realism's critics) but is rather an attempt to philosophise about politics without relying on understandings of morality which we have little reason to endorse.
One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to that dominant approach I put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently-grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context- and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power.
Routledge, 2013
Contributors: Emanuela Ceva, Gerald F. Gaus, John Horton, Simon Cabulea May, Sebastiano Mafettone, Glen Newey, Valeria Ottonelli, Enzo Rossi. The essays in this collection consider (i) the extent to which it is plausible to separate the legitimacy and justice of a polity, in the twofold sense that unjust institutions may still exercise legitimate political authority, and illegitimate institutions may issue just commands and (ii) the ways in which the challenge of ethical diversity affects the normative standing and the proper exercise of political authority, depending on whether such authority is understood primarily in terms of justice or in terms of legitimacy.