1 The case for a liberal political realism

Abstract

The chapter makes the case for a realist approach to the political-ethical experience of living in illiberal regimes. It starts with an explanation for why realism is neither an ideal nor a non-ideal theory: it is because political realism (in its every form) is based on the rejection of what the chapter calls the justificatory model of normative political theory. The justificatory model contends that a satisfactory normative explanation of any political-ethical phenomenon has to rest on a coherent ethical theory. Realism, in contrast, argues that normative political theory cannot be merely an expanded, applied form of ethical theory. It does not necessarily mean that a realist should deny the relevance of moral considerations to politics (even though radical realists might sometimes think so) but at least that any strict distinction between moral and non-moral, facts and values is untenable and that, accordingly, a genuinely political ethics should focus on the all-things-considered answers to the everyday challenges of politics (as liberal realists tend to think). In other words, the chapter argues that it is possible to offer a normative political theory outside the narrow constraints of the justificatory model. The chapter then turns to methodological questions and argues that there are at least two main forms of realist political theory: genealogy (preferred mostly by radical realists) and ethical phenomenology (preferred by liberal realists). After examining both approaches, the chapter contends that the specific purposes of the book an ethical phenomenology with a genealogical edge would be the best option.